August 9, 2022 Alpine School Board Meeting

001how to give some feedback that wasn't always wanted but was good to receive so there was a good uh esprit de corps there so i felt good about that team organization and our commitment to one another and our capacity to move forward the second thing uh is starting out with this desire to develop a coherence framework and a strategic plan and to do that in a collaborative way that we launched that at the end of july and by march april that was holding still that we had buy-in from our principals we had buy-in from our senior leadership buying from the board of education i thought that was a significant achievement to create a framework that brought our pieces together and gives our principals leadership teams at the school level uh clear guidance on where we

002want them to go and i hear over and over again this is so helpful we know where we're headed this is a good direction we can support this so i think that's a lot to achieve in a single year i feel like the board committees has been a positive that we are having more board and senior leadership member interaction around board initiatives and district initiatives that we are aligned more with the board strategic or moral imperative and strategic initiatives and developing means and processes to move that work forward i feel like we've tried to receive feedback we've been intentional about listening to others and adjusting our culture within the district to be one of teacher and school support and i feel like we still have a ways to go there but i feel like we

003are on the same page and getting more on the same page with curriculum and other support services to say we are really there to provide support and direction to the schools and then bringing new members on the team people taking on new roles i think it's a testament to their capacity that they can switch responsibilities and duties and take on other activities and assignments and do them well so that was my sense of where we're at so let's go to joel and annelise and scott and scott's new on the team didn't participate in this reflection um but we'll join in the conversation as well so okay okay uh one of the great celebrations for uh our team we call ourselves the leading learning team was really being able to carve out and dedicate specific time

004to build principal capacity to leave learning in their schools and so that shift and separating the management from the learning leading learning component that happened during the course of the year for us was a big celebration and we we felt like we were really able to uh support principals in building their capacity to do that in their buildings joel would you mind standing up because i have zero thank you line of sight okay um and so that was that was the first thing for us just that having that dedicated time was was incredibly incredibly helpful um one of the things that we're also very proud of is establishing the seven tight essentials of plc's in alpine school district um and coming together and saying what are the seven principles that effective teams need to be

005doing in order to really move the needle on student learning and so getting clear and working with principles together to refine it to those seven so that they can be very specific in supporting their teams moving forward that was that was a great celebration for us and then really and superintendent already talked about a little bit but it is really trying to shift culture uh and and change some of the culture so that it truly is about uh supporting schools in setting and achieving goals and uh a lot of that had to do with uh our supervisors align the efforts of our supervisors aligning the efforts of curriculum our content area specialists our coaches our directors all to that mindset of we are here to support the schools and supporting them in setting and achieving

006their goals and that for us was was a huge celebration we still have work to do but we are very excited about the progress that we're making scott annelise okay to add to that i think one of the greatest celebrations is that as a team we became the village we always say it takes a village and i could see our dlt team become that and be more like a family and i have loved that um i'm very grateful to be part of it and i'm gonna um share something that ken said to me one time the best part about this team is that um the load seems manageable is doable because we support each other and we help each other we're very collaborative and it's all hands on deck sorry i just lost my screen

007here in a so uh related to my specific areas of equity inclusion and student support i kind of broke it into three areas which is conditions under equity let's try to connect i'm sorry thank you conditions on their equity connection under inclusion and then student support but knowing that conditions and connections are throughout everything that we do in outline school district so under conditions definitely developing a vision goals and actions align with our strategic plan under our diversity equity and inclusion committee has been huge this first year and even more so creating and developing our equity committee with our three four members have been amazing they have been part of the work part of the conversations along the way and i could not move forward the work that we do for and about students without

008the amazing board members that are serving in that committee so thank you working together has been huge and i love every minute of it and with cammie i want to forget my cup my partner here my partner in crime um okay under inclusion definitely partnering with families i've had so many conversations and um share experiences with families that i will forever value and have with me i love that i love the partnering with families um work and what we do again for about students under special education the addition of new life skill classes and getting our students closer to their neighborhood schools have been huge and working with facilities and other departments on that has been amazing on boarding a new onboarding process for our refugee students we're now up to 21 families since march

009and i anticipate that we're going to continue uh growing and so establishing those processes welcoming our families not only to a new school setting but a new culture and providing the supports that they need to be successful and then under student support restructuring student services is still an ongoing uh it's a work in progress um and so that restructure is going to be able to support students at um all levels all tiers under their prevention intervention and post vention that they need the culture climate and connection screener will give us the data that we need thank you to our board members that have helped us move that forward as well as our rfp for our tier one so support so those are just some of the highlights um from this last year but knowing that

010this is an ongoing uh process we're continuing to refine and make these supports be what students and families need in response to what they need thank you got anything to add to that yeah um just just one thing we um so each of my kids have had different opportunities choosing in high school to participate varying events from a drill team yeah drill depth and my my daughter so daughter's on drill my son was in the orchestra and spent time there um my other son played baseball and my another son is playing golf but each one of those in respect to sports or activities had a coach and they had someone who would guide them and direct them specifically like my son played viola and he had a great opportunity to learn from some some specific

011coaching that helped him in training video coaching is no different here at the school level we have those opportunities to have coaches now with our principals we started this last year in fact we just had a meeting with our elementary leadership team that planned our professional development and one of the principles i'll misquote the context was in the last 20 years is the best thing we've done to help improve learning across the board by having coaches that's what supervisors and directors going into the schools to talk with our coach our principals to help develop them as leaders build capacity them their confidence across the board to lead their schools in learning in every other aspect that comes up and so just that coaching model to share support we share the profile page last year with

012the secondary schools elementaries have that as well so schools can actually learn from each other support each other across weights that peer-to-peer contact to be able to learn and grow from each other and accelerate the learning process um in the in our schools but that is the coaching model i just want to share very proud of and excited for and that is scott or others going with supervisors to meet with individual principles that say what are your goals and what do you support do you need to move that forward principles of sharing with me is that accountability piece knowing they're coming i've got to have something that i've done and report to them so they've always wanted to do it but then the accountability peaks with the coaching so any questions for the leading learning

013team from the board members okay let's go to cami and then rob and then we'll wrap up with communication all right so just a few things that we would like to celebrate um one of them is we feel like there's been a great um okay what's the word i'm looking for um not increase our relationships with our employee groups have really been strengthened and improved both with the school board and the district leadership team as we're looking at our classified um employee association and our certified employee association it's just we've they've made comments multiple times about they are feeling like we value as a board and as a district leadership team value the employees and they have felt that more this year than um other times which leads into the next one with our negotiated

014package we feel so extremely grateful for the support of the board um for increasing salaries to over fifty thousand dollars for our starting our starting wages for our first year teachers and also the great classified package that was um given this year where all the recommendations for this year for the job study were implemented and that's that's amazing it's never gonna come again just an unprecedented package for our employees and so we feel very excited about that and just grateful for the board that helped make that happen as well as our negotiating team and the support of our superintendent and then we are starting to make our recruiting more purposeful and just are at the very beginning of that and plan to start doing that this year with hopefully some virtual regional areas of the

015united states um recruiting so once we get those dates out once we get those dates we'll start making plans for that and we're excited about that to hope to increase the diversity in our in our teacher pool so we're excited about that also just the opportunity to be able to really work through issues with not issues with ess but issues with substitutes and we were able to work with ess to problem solve and help find solutions to get more substitutes into our system and be there to help our kids and then we've also started um becoming more purposeful with data it's something that's in hr and that's something that has been important to me over the last couple of years and just haven't had a lot of opportunity to start gathering that data and we

016had an intern in hr this summer who had the time and so we gave her all these uh data collection things um to do for us and we're going to use that as baseline data now and look at our recruiting efforts um look at our retention with our which of our student teachers and interns how many we hire back and if they don't come looking for jobs for us why not um to see how we can improve their experience so we'll be looking and also gathering data on why people leave and if there are some things that we can do to help them want to stay questions for cami hey rob hey um low tech note card just in case my screen time down oh my heart was going to analyse there for a minute

017one of the things on our business team that we're doing is um striving to support the board's moral imperative of high levels of learning for all students by attracting quality teachers focusing on student achievement and engaging the community we're pushing more resources than ever to schools and this board has set that as a priority and then holding schools accountable and allowing them to hold us accountable that is critical for us to move the needle for students parents and families as we partner with them some evidences of that cami mentioned the beginning teacher's salary above 50 super excited about that that's a milestone moment this sport set as a priority but wait there's more we're now setting a goal and a plan to achieve 60 000 over the next few years number two transitioning our employees

018to an eight-hour day changing the old productivity models and replacing them with a more consistent expectation for professionals because we have the best professionals in alpine school district and we're grateful for all they do every day for our kids there's a few more we're working on we couldn't get everybody moved this year but we're working with them to adjust their salary schedules they will be part of those um as we move to fy24 to finish that out number three something i never thought we would accomplish and that is scaling support to schools a significant priority this board pushing more resources based on the number of students in a school providing greater equity and support for the many programs and students and families and communities and then lastly um changing the practice i put eliminate but

019i'm going to say modifying the practice of fte savings and productivity models so that we can truly implement real meaningful class size reduction over the next four years which has been a priority of this board and we are set the stage is set i shared some data with the finance committee this morning and a graph that kind of shows that happening it's starting but we'll be more deliberate and intentional with that moving forward and then finally some evidences from third-party independent entities that are continually evaluating your business team this year we received for the 39th consecutive time an award for financial reporting excellence from independent external entities we're one of a handful that have received that status or recognition great team members doing great things for you this is the fourth consecutive meritorious budget award

020it was a priority we set as a business team five six years ago and this is our fourth recognition first ever recognition on our popular annual financial report you want to look at any one document in alpine district that's the one to look at it takes complex detailed information breaks it down with great charts and supportive information to make it real to parents and taxpayers we've submitted for the second i'm anxiously awaiting what they have to say and then finally an award that we received just this week kudos to craig craig brinkerhoff and our purchasing team we've been recognized by npi the national procurement institute for excellence in procurement we are one of 17 school districts that have received that recognition in the u.s and canada 17. there are only 171 agencies in those two

021countries that have received that recognition again we're continuing to strive to get better and improve so we can support you our kids and achieving what they are capable of that's my report okay thank you rob any questions for rob rob just to clarify were there any other districts in utah that were part of that 17. not to my knowledge because it was a workforce i don't know the answer i know that in the past there have been some i'll circle back with you we'll do a little research well we expect you to train your replacement well it's not excellence in procuring the award so david all right external relations and communications yes um so just want to highlight uh superintendent mentioned a few changes with the leadership team and how we've designated external and internal

022relations and just how we're able to focus on those those areas and um by the way i'm glad stacey that you have your notebook now because i want to just share some a lot of data points as far as communication let me note that so if you like to write numbers please sharpen your pencils and get ready first of all i just want to say i'm so thankful to be a part of alpine school district where families are so engaged with us um you know that's what makes alpine school district so amazing and i would start off by pointing out that carissa little is here with us karissa is our region 9 pta director and i visited with her a bit this morning and here come the numbers last year we had 13 356 pta

023members in alpine school district um last monday a week ago they held the pta kickoff and we had more than 350 people in attendance for that training so kudos to carissa and her team and all they're doing to to help us keep our parents engaged okay here are some more facts last year we did listening to our superintendent listening tours we went to we held five employee listening tours and five parent groups but we added one more parent group i believe yes so yeah we had 11 total on those listening tours um sarah hacken what did we add at the bottom of the website what kind of button feedback feedback we added that on february 4th we've had feedback hits that people have brought provided feedback and obviously our goal is to turn around that

024information in 24 hours sometimes that doesn't happen but for the most part that's our goal 24-hour turnaround around as far as covet we did a huge communication campaign with that and we started school on the first day of school with students in school face to face and as you know we had our dashboard and so forth and just a lot of things that we worked through as far as communication goes there but we feel good about how that ended up and by march 14th there were only 15 cases on the dashboard you know how we had that little spike okay next um focus groups in our work with y2 analytics um they held six different focus groups um with approximately 12 parents in each of those focus groups and they also did a survey to

025likely voters and we had responses and as you recall y2 analytics came and presented at our study session in june so okay um social media we have 17 followers on facebook last year we made 155 facebook posts 135 instagram posts 73 tweets and did you guys know we actually have a linkedin account with 2734 followers most people wouldn't think that a school district would have a linkedin account the majority of those are students in our cte programs that go out and do internships and then they put their profile and they they link to alpine school district it's a great opportunity to see where those students are heading through linkedin david could you tell us again facebook and instagram facebook we have 17 319 followers okay and we made 155 facebook posts two more um facts

026here board recognitions you know when we bring folks in and we give them a certificate we also send certificates to state championship teams last year we gave out 1 375 certificates all signed by superintendent and board president and our last highlight i want to mention is after our board meetings to try to be more transparent get the information out there tonight is going to be our fifth board brief that we will send out so that's where we send out that little brief we've said it set it out on social media it's on the school board web page so those are some facts about communications kimberly what do you want to add okay good job i'm just going to take my three minutes down to one minute okay no yours was perfect um i don't don't

027you love david stevenson i think one of the best moves you know as we reflected on our leadership team one of the best moves was that clear external versus internal and that's really helped us to both grow and to both um learn be able to learn how to focus in specific areas so i just i i it's such a privilege to really work with everybody on this leadership team and those are some of the feelings that i expressed that day it's just it's it's been wonderful um here are some things that as david mentioned the listening tour our focus really was on as we brought about you know a new superintendent we you guys a new superintendent it was so important to help people understand that we wanted to hear what they were hoping for

028and that was all shane's idea shane wanted that to be to happen and he also wants it to continue to happen so we'll take the listening tour as we provide information meetings on our capital plan so we're going to go out in the listening tour fashion but also present some information capital wise and then um a lot like we did with the listening tour last year we'd like to extend that to both um employees again and students so get down maybe to the student level and i don't know if that feedback came initially from the listing tours or your work with board members but just a way to continue to grow upon the things that we did this year our admin communications in the past we would send them out when we'd have the information

029but we didn't have a set day and time and as david has mentioned karen's name karen was a great ad to our communications um the consistency of a 7 a.m monday morning communication to all of the admins and then the same thing with employees every wednesday 60 admin communications that happen consistently 58 employee communications that happen every wednesday that has really been consistent now whether or not people read them is another story but at least there's that consistency that also has i don't know if you've noticed but we've got a historical mark that anybody who missed a communication you can find what we've communicated out to anyone you just click it and then it's just a display of all of the communication so the other thing that we started the year on um i i

030also get to oversee two fantastic departments facilities and transportation i'll start with transportation we took on a big load of having a start time that was designated for schools no longer were we doing the early and later gator at all schools remember it was about okay let's create that elementary teaching instructional day that was we our hope was that we're going to impact literacy and time for teachers to work with all of their students versus the old model because we saw no difference in variation but in doing that we know that it was a challenge you guys probably heard from a lot of parents about their start their designated start time i remember working with a couple of schools out west who were just like please can we get it changed for next year i

031want you to know the the results we've been working with one school community this year as we're starting because they'd like to introduce an option to change their time and um as we met with the school well it was actually um eric and barry they met with the school just last week um they understand now the process it would take for that to be studied it obviously comes down to a recommendation that they would need to put forward but also include a survey of parents and employees so they were glad to hear what our process would be so i feel like that was a big accomplishment is that huge change of school start times the elementary level and really the results being some frustrations probably at three specific schools that we kept having as part

032of our conversation but i think things have worked out in the end the other thing with our facilities i think we had a great year in understanding how to work closely with our capital team our board capital team but what we would bring to them were variables that were not just driven by what is the age of a school or what is a seismic but remember the variables what is the change in enrollment is the change of growth is a change a decline remember we used a variable approach to say now we can prioritize and rank them and then we came out i believe it was september october november right around there we came out with a five to ten year capital plan what would the next over the next 10 years look like so

033that we could have an equitable distribution of our intentions for capital projects throughout the district and we created and that's really what surfaced in capital where could we what projects could we go after um that would likely entail a 2022 bond or a 2026. how could the next 10 years look whether it's tax increments whether it's bonds whether it's whatever we work closely with the finance team as they advised us on those things and um i will do more of a presentation this afternoon but i feel like our facilities team they have such a good handle on our facilities and what are the current needs but we don't attack things just by one variable it's it's a cumulative priority that then ranks one school or one area above another next we had a new council

034called advisory so internally we had to change from a cabinet to two different leadership groups and that is not as you guys know and when you lead change and it's it's a difference of how you function there can be some snags along the way i think this was a first year of growth with our advisory team and understanding what is the role how do we support schools and then how are we accountable for the information that we we learn together in a council advisory council meeting and then how do we share those supports back we really focused heavily in it in that role with leading learning and we recognize that there might be some issues management wise that we've got to bring you know to the same level of support to the schools so this

035year we'll make some some corrections and improvements to have moments for matters which will be the managerial matters but advisory was another change it was it was good i think it took a while for people to understand okay we're not on cabinet anymore so great but the truth is is it was just about learning a new change in a new position so that would that would be my re my report okay craig anything you'd like to add i'm here and i think that was one of the goals of dlt so congratulations living evidence we look forward to adding uh scott and craig and bringing them into the team uh great team i'm just so pleased with uh the work that they're doing and the way that they're doing that work and how we're working together

036with the board to move the district forward there are still lots of things to do i will share with you tonight a little bit of my evaluation some goals that we're working on that i'm working on to support you and moving this district forward and then we have obviously the goals of the strategic plan that we are committed to that align with the board's moral imperative and your strategic priorities so we look forward to opportunity continue to collaborate and govern with you thank you for indulging us in a little bit of a report of what we have been working on next item on the agenda is to we have this as a study session item and we also have it as a discussion action item sensitive materials so kimberly and craig have been working with

037the policy committee on that and i just wanted the public to be aware of kind of the stages and an update on where we're at with that process allow board members to engage in that discussion as well i appreciate this is a complex challenging multi-faceted legally opinionated public opinionated issue and i appreciate their desire to do what is right for our families and our students to partner uh with them in moving forward policies and procedures and materials that are appropriate for our students so kimberly we'll turn the time over to you and craig and your committee to kind of walk us through some of those talking points okay so i built a short presentation um last night because i feel like the public who who might be tuning in today they need to know what

038the board of ed is that this is a complex issue and you need to see the chain of events and the timelines that occurred once house bill 374 was approved and if you're wondering why our policy has taken some significant work and time i'm going to show you the timeline of the entire state and that should help our public see why we are where we are but we're in a really great place and i'm really grateful for our our team our policy team who's worked on these things so it all started with house bill 374 which prohibits certain sensitive instructional materials from public schools from 374 we had some key defining points it was to define materials and terms it was to prohibit certain materials and then the usb e in that 374 language said

039that they'll consult with districts the op the office of the attorney general you obviously know that we've got a couple of memos that have come out and then it was to provide guidance and training for identifying sensitive materials house bill 374 also outlined that we were to include parents who are reflective of the school community to when determining something being sensitive material and then finally it was an implementation and a compliance model so that's what 374 provided us it didn't mean that we knew exactly what to do but we have legislation that said this is something that should be on our radar we should be concerned about um from there why is this known come on there we go house bill 374 mentioned estate statute 53 g 10 103 which talks about if you click

040on that sensitive materials from there it said sensitive material means instructional material that's pornographic or ins decent material as the term is defined in section 76 10 12 35 now this is an important thing that i'm going to show you because you need to let's watch and go through each of these different laws because they're all important to understand the comprehensive nature of this entire bill and what we are to do as a district with policy here's 76 10 35 accessing pornographic or indecent material on school property here's how it's defined pornographic material means any material defined as harmful to minors in section 76 10 1201 or as described as pornographic in 1203 or as described in 1227 also as pornographic those are three very important definitions or descriptions okay so house bill 374 gave

041us 53 g which gave us what 76 10 12 35 which then described 1201 1203 and 1227. okay it is possible as i've i've worked with um the public you know a lot of times our president will say kimberly can you respond to this parent or shane will say can you respond sometimes people get trapped in just one of those laws or definitions or descriptions so that's why i wanted to share this so everybody could see how things are happening so i want to go into each of those 1201 is about harmful for minors and it's it says this harmful to minors means that quality of any description of or representation in whatsoever form of nudity sexual conduct excitement or sadomasochistic abuse when it and then here's the three-prong test right taken as a whole

042appeals to the period interest in sex of minors is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors and taken as a whole does not have serious value for minors that's the three-pronged approach on just 1201 harmful for minors okay let's go on to the next one 1203 says this any material performance is i'm sorry is that an and on those three in the it doesn't have all oh on 1201 and yes it's a three prong this and this and this 1203 is any material so really quick a lot of these are saying taken as a whole does not have serious literary artistic political or scientific value has code defined that for us so i'm going to get to one 12 27 okay

043i think amber i think i'm going to answer your question in 1227 but let's see um in 1203 any material performance is pornographic if the average person applying contemporary community standards finds that taken as a whole it appeals to the period interest in sex so you'll notice that some of these kind of sound similar whether it's 1201 1203 but they're not all exactly the same 1203 defines or describes it as it is patently offensive in the description or depiction of nudity and then so on it also says taken as a whole it does not have serious literary artistic political or scientific value that's how that one would define or describe pornographic material then we get to 1227. i feel like this one is very robust as well so i had to do two slides for

044it on 12 27 it says for purposes of this section and section 76 1028 because that's how the law is written it's a description or depiction of illicit sex or sexual immorality which means and you can see i 2i 3i4 you can see those those are important because that's going to come up in this very last section of 1227. the i the 2i the 3i pay close attention to those okay and then next it says nude or partially denuded figure means and then you can see a b c d and then in the human you can see that last description but look at this last part 2c a description or depiction of illicit sex or sexual immorality as defined in subject section 1a 1 i 2 or 3 what do they say in the law

045it has no serious value for minors this would be what the attorney general has described as the bright line rule so i think this answers your question it doesn't they haven't defined what literary merit is in the law but they have to find it if it has this in it there is no serious value that it almost trumps that second clarification or second question if this then you don't even consider the serious literary scientific merit of it because that's the question where are we establishing committees yeah i think it's to determine whether or not it has that material in it right but then i think what i'm understanding of this is that you don't go to that second prong of does it have literary or scientific merit if it meets this standard it means this

046it doesn't you're done it can't have merit because i think that's the argument we're hearing from you know those who are concerned is this work has literary merit so i've been concerned about well how do we define that but this is saying you don't it's it's not it doesn't have if it has a description of this in it it has been created i met with two english teachers today um as they're wrestling with it they're trying to understand it fantastic teachers and um you know we're trying to go through an example of you know the work that they do and the books that they put out these are these are probably and i don't want to say exceptions because i don't know i've not met all of our english teachers but they're two teachers who

047are very detailed and descriptive on information they send out to parents and they outline not only the book choice titles but also their reviews and what why what is the purpose that they're putting them out there for and then parents please let me know through this source i think it was a google form if you would like me if if you would like to opt into this it was an ap english teacher or if you'd like me to prepare another um alternative text so there were some things that they were saying um you know how how do we wrestle with this and i have to tell you guys this is why our policy committee this has been so difficult this has been difficult because at what level are we determining this i think what's been

048helpful is looking at some of the material although it's you know this one will be very difficult and challenging but i think it's important for any committee and that's why we want to make sure our committees are trained appropriately whether that's we did put in school committee councils although the law didn't say we had to but school community council members are elected parents and they do reflect the community value i mean that's why they were elected parents so how we train i keep wanting to do tag team with david because he he works specifically with them but how do we help train our committees uh on this this is going to be it's tough it's difficult but we can do it but this has been some of the complication then i want to share with

049you can we stop pause for a second yeah craig uh just from a legal counsel perspective is that your understanding as well when you read that 12 27 yeah can you go back to that i'll bring it up here okay here we are okay go ahead so as far as the bright line yes can you clarify that so i mean it does specifically address those three and it points out uh the roman numeral one roman numeral two and three and what i say i long time too um as being no serious value right so to answer your question right it doesn't say what does have it says what doesn't have so it's kind of the inverse of that but isn't the operative word that it said before it was like this or right so it

050can be any one of those three it doesn't have to be all three that's that's the gonna be your difference between or and and right so because you're not the one i was referring to but yeah i was referring to um where it says a depiction a description or depiction of illicit sex or sexual immorality as defined in that or has no serious value of minors so it's the word or right so it's those three any one of those three will qualify it doesn't have to be all of those three triggers the bright line interpretation right and so you know one of the things that the attorney general's letter pointed out is that by following the bright line we are in compliance with house bill 374 and so if we do not all i can

051read to you um what his letter a section of his letter says says there are actions the board and leads may take in complying with house bill 374 to mitigate the risk of legal challenge the first is to immediately remove books from school libraries that are categorically defined as pornography under the state statute this will help protect the lease from potential lawsuits brought by parents or groups alleging the school failed to comply with state laws so that's the bright line rule and that is how we comply with that rule is by removing it because it's deemed or not pornographic the other question then is well you know why go through the process right well it says right here hb 374 will likely be subject to legal challenge yeah and so going through the process helps

052us bolster our argument for restriction if there is a legal challenge and that's the purpose of going through the process and not just stopping right there okay so thanks craig um so i want to clarify and i want to separate but show the intention of how it worked together this summer you just saw the timeline we received house bill the legislation passed for the house bill 378 but we really didn't have anything beyond that so what instead of sitting on our laurels during the summer we also have received some concerns from parents about some um titles that we could possibly have we didn't know if we had them or not it was just there are books in your schools that have pornography in them so i think people are taking this summer work stuff and

053and bringing it together and we we knew that we didn't have a policy that would say here's how a review committee would take these titles that are being brought to board meetings or they were taken to some schools so we tried to say how do we be attentive and respond and not just ignore we put together then something that we thought would be separate in a procurement sort of way we wanted to see did we have titles in our in our libraries or even in classrooms that contained this sensitive material as we are um supposed to be looking at it so we just have classrooms as well no we didn't we didn't we didn't have we literally just had enough time and they met three times um this particular internal procurement team to review these

054questions and i want you to look at them this is what we asked them to do first we gave them a copy of the aegis letter that we got june 1st and that was a helpful clarifier from the may 4th letter the other thing that we had was um the house bill 374 so we said okay committee look at these titles and again there were a group of titles that um had been surfacing and you know what why not look at them so we said do we own them number one have we procured any of the titles on the list that was our first question yes or no if yes are they in print or digital our digital uh group is called sora so that's the other thing that they noted and then if yes

055can we identify what school location has the title and of the titles we have procured so if yes yes yes of those have we do they contain sensitive material as described in house bill 374 and in the aegis letter so that was our attempt to not ignore something but to say okay have we used this as we used alpine school district funds to procure things we found out that we didn't have a lot of the titles and we also found out that um of those that contained which was again not done in a committee review sort of way so don't get those two confused it was just did they contain the sensitive material as defined in the letter and we found that about 50 50 152 that number you know is is summarized it has

056titles on the list not necessarily titles in our curriculum yeah titles on that list i apologize and by the way when we first received the list it was around the 200s i think over the summer it's probably grown but this team just looked at that snapshot that was given to us at that particular time so of those um for example i met again with a high school person the junior high person i've met with elementary we literally have one of the titles in one elementary school so if you think of our 93 this might sound very intense you know those numbers that i reported the last meeting they're very small so one elementary out of all with one title with the high school i met with today three three to five i think they said

057three but we have other schools that might have a little bit more it just re it really depended so knowing that then we took that information that they shared and we took it back as a district leadership team and we said okay now we have information now what and the the first response and i will take ownership of that was okay let's get them let's get them boxed up um and then we'll get them we'll just hold them and then we'll find out what the policy says we do with stuff like this you know what i mean how do we take it through a review i sent a communication out to admins explaining that and then what i learned after they were supposed to work with librarians and teachers nobody comes on the contract until

058august thursday yeah thursday so then i put out another clarifier plus it was very alarming to people to get this and i i apologize but again just not really knowing but not wanting to ignore that we did have some identification of some titles that we want to have a closer look so another clarification was sent out listen when i said remove it didn't mean that we're burning them i know the media has used the word banned but that was from a news article they used on the 374 news story but they kept it with us our removement removed from access to kids so the state has clarified in their model policy that that would mean restrict so that's the clarifier word that we use let's restrict these titles knowing that we have them from access

059to kids until a policy can be approved and we can run it through a process of review that's how we have when the attorney general is saying there's a bright line rule but you have when we look at there are going to be litigations on both sides that's just that's the nature of what the letter is describing litigation on both sides from house bill 374 but we have a stronger point when we follow a process we don't just bright line and nothing but we bright line with a process that we had multiple stakeholder representatives understanding the title the reason why it's being brought as a concern and then having a look at it that's the process that i think was identified in the letter so that's what we're trying to now take all of these

060rules and laws and then how do we apply them into procedures rules and regs and a policy that we can now really get down the road to the actual school and teacher that's been the complication so i we know that this has been a long time but that's uh that's just the nature of this one this has been a tough one we've never seen anything like it so i just shared i wanted the public to know i learned on august 1st that even in an internal procurement review process i should have involved a parent and i didn't i didn't know that or i would have involved a parent because i had a parent on our initial draft of policy i should have done that we'll make that correction in the future but i just wanted

061to be very transparent on that i learned that on august 1st should have had a parent on that committee okay regardless of us being on a book challenge review any committee that has to do with our instructional material whether it's procurement adoption selection we should involve parents okay and then here's the two communications i just mentioned and i wanted to clarify removal meant restrict we're restricting until it can the policy can be made so that's that's where we are and then i just wanted to share with you as we talk about this moving target we just learned that the state recognizing how complex this is they have moved our date for when do we have to have a policy in place now from september one to october one that's why we're trying to hurry and

062push push push i think we're still in a place where we could look at some options you know that we could do a get us in a starting place and then move us to say but it's on the recommendation that we come back again at the end of september's board meeting to put something more formally you know another one but just wanted to surface these things um you know that have come about and kimberly can you say to throwing that in there the other difficult part of writing this policy because people can write policy but a lot of this was this isn't just sensitive reading materials and media centers or libraries in schools this is sensitive materials and classrooms and you know looking at the audio books and looking at you know electronic books so

063it it was multifaceted in its approach but was what was difficult is it's not just writing policy it's thinking heavily on implementation and what that's going to look like at a ground level and there are many times we had to stop and pause in the middle of the policy and go that is not going to work in the classroom and so it was back and forth and trying to figure that out the other thing that we grapple with is just um with the review committees what is that going to look like we haven't pinpointed that that's why the policy still is incomplete because we have yet to determine how that is going to run when you have let's say you have one pornographic title one copy of a book in the library and you have

064a review committee of nine people how are we gonna get that other book are we gonna purchase is alpine school district going to purchase a pornographic copy for each member to be able to review with tax credit and that's why i'm saying there is things that uh you know a lot of us and i would i am not in favor of that i would never support that and so then you start talking okay can a review committee look something like um being able to go back and there are copyright laws that we could adhere to while still making this robust policy where you can say all right you get this pornographic book you get this one this one we have several different titles everyone go back you do your due diligence you review you take

065copies you make copies and you write the page numbers all of that come back and report each person would go through and report and say this is what i found now based on hp 374 and also the attorney general being very i mean they said legally they they would defend us and you brought in the other half of that which is if you go through the process well if you've got a heavy duty pornographic and this is the other issue is really defining those those definitions we're not talking sensitive materials we're not talking about a story in the middle two people go off and sleep together that's not even it it is talking about so graphic that some of the definitions used by the state uses excrement so it is beyond sex it's more of

066a pornographic nature that is so offensive and so to have a committee come back and say all right this is what i found here's your copies page numbers let's discuss so and through this review committee does it meet that three-prong criteria the set forth by the attorney general yes okay is everyone agree with that okay moving on where are we the three hours is this a removal a retained or a restricted and so i'm thinking we probably have some leeway my personal opinion i'm not speaking for even the policy committee my personal opinion is that like it's been mentioned we would have legal issues on both sides regardless but i i am so adamant that those books that are so pornographic i'm not talking about good books that have literary cultural educational value i'm talking

067solely about these i don't think it's fair that we should ask people to read it i think there's a difference between review and read i've said before you don't have to eat an entire apple to know what's wrong and so to have kind of a review committee that we could get through those books because we have some that are at such high number we ask the question how on earth i mean julie you brought that a pound or if you're going to get through those books in a 30-day period calendar year school day to get everyone through these review it would take years and so that's an idea i mean i'm not necessarily saying that's something that you know we're going to do but it's just an idea but these are the kind of conversations

068that we've been having that is so difficult it has probably been the hardest policy we've spent close to 20 hours just on that policy and it's been hard and we'll have to you know finagle and wrangle with it yeah there's there's two three two things we're trying to balance one is to protect children from pornographic material it is illegal to have that in our schools and and we can be challenged you can send a police officer officer to school and say you have pornographic material i'm going to arrest you we can't do that so the bright line protects us from that this is if it's pornographic it will be removed done because it's illegal to have that in our schools we just can't but the other side of that is your first amendment rights and

069those are huge so trying to balance those two is is a very it's a very delicate walk and trying to find figure out how do we protect those first amendment rights and also protect children so there's a lot that has to happen here and operationalizing it is we've spent hours literally hours talking about operationalizing for example um could a parent opt in could is there a way to put on skyward a little button this was one of julie's ideas that says i get permission from my child to see any material that is restricted um or removed and and we had to bring blaine and save lane is that even possible how long would it take where would you put it what would the manpower be how do we follow up do all of our libraries

070have the same system and thankfully they do they're all on alexandria could a librarian print out a list of materials for a parent could a librarian can we flag at something and so the librarian knows this is a restricted material but this child does have permission i mean these are complicated issues that we just need to work all the details through so that we're protecting rights on both sides of the fence and this goes to a very basic level i mean we had to understand that there is a difference between a public library and a school library this this school book library is serving minors for the purpose of learning so we had to make that very clear but it also goes you know it's on a school level it's in the library level but

071it's also on a classroom level that our classrooms are also instructional spaces that need to adhere to these guidelines which introduces a whole another level of uh guidelines that teachers need to adhere to so that's also a very sensitive part of this policy one thing to consider board is typically when something is multi-faceted and complex and difficult we we pilot it we experiment with it a little bit so one con consideration would be to adopt the policy approve the policy let us work on it for the next month and a half put some committees in place and let us learn and then come back by the end of september having operationalized this a little bit to make any adjustments that we need to to satisfy the state requirement of an october first policy in place

072or another option is to hold and say you know what given what you've got in policy go work on this it may not be fully in in accordance with policy as the policy continues to evolve but we've we feel a little bit of a need to get information out to our principals and teachers to give some direction and guidance to them but we have that october first deadline as well so just working through some of those nuances of how do we move forward in acting upon this learning by doing and meet the october 1st deadline is it hold the policy until september for final approval is it give conditional approval tonight or conditional approval the beginning of september and then let's work on that so just some things to consider that we would like to

073start working on this and training our principles and learning by doing and knowing that we need to meet that october 1st deadline for a final policy on this and shane if we go with that idea i would like to include in the pilot some things that i learned today there were some great pivots or adjustments that strengthen where we were last night and remember that was after how many hours one more time meeting but i think we've learned today i've met with a couple of board members who brought in a great perspective i think we have a version two draft that if we go if that's where the board wants to go let's do a pilot so that we get something started with schools and teachers and then we come back and report back with

074some fine-tuning of it to meet the october one deadline i'd like to go with i'd like to share with them this version too and share um a couple of the pokemon yeah please and we're going to have more discussion on this tonight in board meetings yeah so is that where you'd like it to be housed well i think we want to be sensitive to board governance and knowing that we're still going to talk this time okay can we can we can we go over these two pieces i really i'm willing to pause my board governance piece but the couple of uh proposed editions yeah the reds starting right here page okay so page six is three point four point two point four so i do you wanna talk about this or do you want me

075to talk about it obviously well i want it so the reds i did i got from board member feedback but i i don't i mean do you want to share i'm happy to do it because i if they're really good strengthen they're good clarifiers for example should i just go through well julie i've read this and i like the positivity it's flipped yeah right yeah what it was yeah so which is a good so it's saying it's saying the same thing it's just saying it in a not a punitive way i guess right i like it i like it i think it's good yeah and and my only question was does it extend to you don't have it up here personal yes i do yeah so like well but they also have it would be

076the same argument like right not distracting from a learning environment just like we don't let kids wear t-shirts that have drug references or whatever right yeah i mean yeah it would still be in alignment with our employee dress code and things like that well kimberly do you want to segue in why we're talking about these personal spaces well i mentioned the classroom real quick 15. we just have some people in the room i just wanted them to see just because it's public meeting okay 1582. one second sorry you guys just as you're talking about i want it to reflect yeah um let's look and see what's available there's 210 but it doesn't say solstice am i okay there were so there were three changes well kimberly's pulling it out in 6.4.1.2 just changing it from

077two to three just because in a secondary school that um your kid is in school for three years so it seemed to make sense to do it for a three-year period and that's what the model that's the model policy from usb stated as well so that was one change and then the very last one she'll pull them all up is the 1.3 under rules in red so it's on page um 15. was wondering if we could move that and put that nut up with seven in the seven section well kimberly looked at putting in the seven sections and then she felt i mean i don't it doesn't matter to me she felt that it was more applicable in the rules and rags but um i mean it's not something that i'm married to i mean

078that's true where it's placed in the policy good you know you have this one she has to put this in the sevens okay so to me the replacement it comes after the review committee makes their determination so why we wouldn't place it right after that to say now listen if it's a book that i'm gonna just use dogs but we know that it's any genre let's say it's a book about dogs my kid won't read dog books because all the dogs die in dog books yes an english teacher said to me uh kimberly i do i do a book that's on the war and there are soldiers who use really graphic language and i always before the books ever introduced i let the parents know and if so if this particular book that she was

079referring to because she was nervous about that she's i said well there's something that a board member just met with me this morning on that would be a great way to say okay can we get a replacement book then that would talk about that history it's not like it's the only book but we want that to be no matter what the genre whether it's a marginalized community whether it's a topic of history whatever it's a replacement and i feel like that was very satisfying they loved it that happens all the time where they have to go in and switch up texts for students that don't feel comfortable reading it so it's not like this is a foreign concept it happens now no i i like the rest of this thing that makes sense often no

080i wouldn't think it's a helpful thing i think it happens nobody said they do it all the time well no what i'm saying is all the time it's not like this is new they've done it before but i like this julian those were just we just i just felt like those were slight changes we could make um to to address some of the concerns of an express through public comment um you know specifically with our lgbtq population or our bipod community to make sure that we're not removing that voice and it's an easy way for us to just make sure that we're finding books that are appropriate that reflect that perspective so regardless of why a book is for you know like you know which perspective it is if it's a book about a dog

081that dies that you have to find you just you just you should replace it and it's not a requirement we're not saying shall or must it should meaning that we do want to have diverse libraries that reflect diverse experiences so we want to make sure that we are not inadvertently removing um a community's perspective because it does violate state code we should marginalize that content even further yeah i think it helps alleviate a little bit you know you don't want to put so much on librarians you know and making it such a burden on it so i did appreciate so those were the three changes that i suggested just that changing the two to a three the um the change three because we've talked for like 45 minutes can i bring up some questions the

082committee had and maybe that you other two can be looking at our list of possible discussions but um you know there we have the the list of people who can challenge this the parent who has a student at the school the student who is at the school an employee of the school do you want the board of education that is actually something i did very well that was the first thing i actually am not a fan of that because i really do believe in local control and to me the parent is the most local control of that um and as much as we talk about you know our board dynamics that we're not trying to get into the weeds i don't know that it's appropriate for me to go and tell a librarian you know

083like obviously we want to be abiding by the state code that we have to honor but i also feel like i feel like it's appropriate for parents to do that at a school level and i don't know that it's appropriate for me as a board member to do that i also feel like um it is a potential to create some unhealthy dynamics between board members and schools okay any other things and i disagree because i think it happens really regularly that parents have a situation that they don't feel comfortable taking to their administrator for one reason or another and they may bring it to their board member and so for a board member to be able to act as the voice of a parent in that instance i think is an important i mean we

084represent parents and so i mean it happens all the time that parents don't feel comfortable taking a concern because they're worried about blow back with their kids or whatever and i feel like that's another avenue that a parent could use they could say hey i i can't rock the boat at my kid's school anymore but this is a problem because you you know the way okay you bring him in you bring up another important point that we need to discuss but is there any other feeling on that one i i guess i would just um amber and i don't argue about a whole lot so i'm kind of like flabbergasted i'm like no i'm just kidding um the other perspective i take is yeah i have parents and staff members who will sometimes reach out

085to me and sometimes what they want is a listening ear to say i'm frustrated but i cannot go to a st i cannot go to an administrator and say i'm going to advocate for something unless that parent allows me to disclose personal information about their child like i had a parent reach out and disclose to me a very personal story about their child and i said are you okay if i share this with administrators because if i can't release identifying information then i can't actually resolve the issue so i guess what i would say in kind of rebuttal to that is but it's gonna have to come out i mean like if you're gonna go and advocate and say my kid read this book or checked it out or is in this class and feels

086the book is inappropriate so and i get it that can sometimes be uncomfortable for a parent to go in but i also feel like um that's also our responsibility as parents to go in and advocate for our kids and i worry i worry the way that this could potentially um create unhealthy dynamics in the district okay well we will discuss it as a committee and we'll bring forward everything and i agree with that too i think board members would have to be really careful in that situation but there are absolutely i'm sorry to say instances of when a parent has brought a concern to a teacher an admin and their kid has suffered repercussions from that but it could have does happen you could apparently have another parent instead of coming to a board member

087and having one of us take that to the committee and i feel like if i'm representing my community and my parents why would i say oh go tell someone else to pretend like it was their kids what if they went through local control or a member of a school community council to say you know what you have a concern you want to bring up you could bring it up to an elected official in your school a member of the school community council because it could raise that that would keep the board out of that role still keep it in local control and use the the avenue of the school community council if they felt uncomfortable bringing it i really like that i think i sit with julie on this one i am not in any

088way comfortable being another i'm just trying to provide an avenue or an access point okay here's here's another point do we have time to have another point of discussion or we have 10 more minutes and and i want everybody to think in this frame think about the option of those of you who are hearing from your constituents we've got to get this in think about it in terms of pilot and what you'd want to wreck i just took the strike off but if you want to go there on the pilot you're going to have to be clear because the the paper that i just gave you it will include that this is the version we'd want to do a pilot on not last night's at whenever you posted rhonda with the three changes the three

089yes or fourteen or four yeah there's still a lot up in the air i'm telling you two pages and i think we need to be understanding that that up in the air will come settling down as we have a chance to work through a little bit this is probably not the last time that we take a look at this policy but an important one is are the members of the review committee anonymous is the person bringing forward the challenge anonymous but are there any rights to anonymity in this process you can't have one without that i think my concern is if you're going to say that the parent is anonymous then i'm not identifying all the people on the committee and opening them up one of the concerns we were having is when you have

090the review committees we thought on both sides what it would look like if you had a committee that voted in favor but keeping them over retaining it that may open up something where they're kind of shutting them down they own this business you know what i mean just making things a little bit difficult um for them the objective is to make sure that our parents are are wanting to participate on a review committee we wouldn't want to do anything that they'd say i i don't want to get near that that's so confidentiality should go always how do we protect those people and how they brought it up and correct me wasn't it more of anonymity it kind of made it sound like you didn't need to know you would just need to know the results

091well we need to be transparent about the books that are being reviewed and what a finding is by a committee but we shouldn't have to shame a parent and we shouldn't have to shame a committee of stakeholders for doing their work and by the way there are i don't think that um we can't laminate it right now but we've got to try it out okay so it's now a great time for me to get my thoughts on the pilot thing okay now it is so yesterday i was very much i got into the brain of let's hold let's wait let's get it right um and actually talked with a few librarians and teachers who said you know this makes me feel better to holding it right okay but then all day as i've been talking

092to people and thinking i like the idea of a pilot because then it gives us a chance to see what is not working right before it fully gets there and so when we revisit it again we have a little more information so i am in support of that so i have like a temporary do we have to like actually pacify a policy too i would take legal counsel rob's opinion others that we passed the policy understanding that this is our best effort at this point but we're going to implement it and come back the end of september and make any adjustments so our policy by october 1 is the amended policy based upon our practice over august and second and remember board policy board approval is for the policy and not necessarily the rules and

093rights and i would suggest that it's likely that in december or january or february we're going to bring this back is we have not had a librarian there on your policy committee yeah because we've discussed it we've enjoyed having blame there well valen's been there aydah but like somebody else is live right now but we've been we enjoyed having craig there with the legal issue blaine with can i jump back to we were talking about how we're concerned about anonymity sorry good job of the review committee and i'm concerned that the previous discussion was that we don't are not providing a way for anonymity of the parent who has a concern because i think that the repercussions that could happen well that's what i'm saying i was saying i see a board member having access

094and maybe it's a school community council member or whatever instead i see that as a way to provide a parent a way to get feedback with some anonymity my gosh can't stay up tonight but um if they do feel like there could be a repercussion for their child and so i think if we're going to look at having cover for the review committee that we need to also have a way for a parent to bring up a concern i think it should be that parents should be able to submit a book challenge to either the librarian or the administrator and they are the only individual who knows who submitted the challenge okay because then if they have to form the committee you can't have somebody who has submitted the challenge beyond the committee we already

095know that that's i'm just saying i think it would be very easy to just say that's the only individual who knows to challenge the book that's how you maintain anonymity you just and then and they just black out that's something they black out the name and then make the copies to say these are the concerns the parent has expressed yeah i like that we we specifically didn't put it in because we didn't know where is everybody feeling this is why it's helpful we can put that in see those are the things that we're gonna i think can be fleshed out in the next month if we could get this as a starting point because truthfully we're just going to have parents who trust the teachers and said hey i don't like this book and we

096want to get it resolved on the lowest level those that go to formal challenge confidentiality starts right there so like you're supposed to add that in yeah tonight so we could do um an ad no person three don't worry well that's what i'm saying that i think yeah there's too much to add in honestly but here's like there's another discussion okay um all right where was it um [Music] or changes tonight but i think we can get enough to start it okay get it going yeah yeah it's holding still enough for us to try it and work on it let's pilot it and bring it back are you saying i will adopt it tonight with the provision or i'm suggesting that the board consider their willingness to adopt it as conversion two and any amendments

097that come out of discussion with the opportunity for us to work start working on this and then bring it back the end of september okay here's the other amendment that's pretty important the appeal process and you said you had a discussion with other superintendents was that the appeal was not so much for the decision that was made but an appeal can be made if there has been an error in the processing process our sense of things and again this is evolving and changing is that when because in the state model policy you can appeal to the state board of education if you feel something was not addressed our sense of that appeal from the state office was what we are what they're appealing is you didn't follow due process you were supposed to have these

098things in place and you didn't and so the state would look and say was the policy was a process with due process given not oh we're going to now read the book as the state office of education and determine that that book should be included that is contrary to what the state's trying to do the state's trying to put in a process for local individuals in adherence with state law to determine what is appropriate what is not appropriate so you're not appealing and i think we need to look at that and say okay if a school community council or review committee at canyon view junior high makes this decision and the parent says i want to appeal that decision do we then as a appeal committee override the content decision i think we don't that's

099a local decision what we do is to make sure that that process has been followed with fidelity now we as a committee we understand that i just wanted to hear what the board at large felt about is that okay that makes sense to me to me the intent of the law is for local participation given the standards of the community to make that determination and just so you understand that if that appeal is successful and they say and the district committee review committee says no you did not follow the proper process then it gets reverted back to that local school to do again is most of the bones of that in here with just a few changes yeah i think we have enough to get started that we're going to learn in the next month

100in a couple of weeks okay so we only have really one thing that we the anonymity is that a policy or is that a um it is not in the policies we could we can although that's true what ada said the truth is i think we want to be yeah just yeah and then roles in regular keep it in rules we still want everybody the board to always see where we're going in procedures and rules and wrecks that it's important because it doesn't necessarily need to be passed by the board it could be we could put it in right still want to review with the full board though at the end of september yes yeah and and sarah's whole idea about reviewing more than one book at a time that's that's the thing for discussion

101i think rules and regs that's a really very important one can i mention one other thing for you guys to think about um under the law if a book meets the criteria for pornography it must be removed but we also have restricted and what we have done in the policy is we have expanded restricted so it's not just pornographic but there are some other things that can be included in restricted and um we're wondering let me see if i can find it here but we had like suicidal idiot ideologies materials definitions yeah so what we have done is we've said sensitive materials is pornography or is so what we've kind of done is uh we have kind of modified a little bit so we have another level in there so the losses if it's a

102sense of material is only pornographic and we've said it could be this if it's pornographic it will be removed but it could be a sense of material in one of these other areas in the next video so you think that you guys added the vulgarity violence or the promotion like [Music] we didn't do a highlight we did not we didn't know that it but it's really it's it's it's parentheticals in every zipper the one i'm talking about everything else is right here so i don't know if that means this is just that you just said you actually yeah i know show him that you just said you added to this definition so i don't know if this is code or this is what you wrote because here's the parenthetical reference right now we're trying to

103understand the difference between pornographic materials and the problem is is that absolutely the state law is they you they use it interchangeably okay but what i'm saying is i haven't stopped through 20 hours of policy meetings i don't know what you wrote and what's code so i don't know what i can say can you the majority of it wouldn't you say it's from long i mean right but you just said here's the definition that we changed i can't tell whether okay it's changed so yeah true the very first one we went straight from cody you saw the abcd right the version that you saw was more of right here on this one it is no longer straight from code right that's what i noticed these were all straight from code every code straight straight right

104but this is not now right um number seven no that's a summary i don't know what's color is something that helps me know what's in code and what should we have to debate people that i became the english teachers that came and debated and not debated but came and spoke to me today they prefer we go back to a b c and d i got that from two i got that from feedback just today so you made a b c and d with the full definitions yes she said she said this this is she goes is this coming from you guys and it was almost like yeah we use all those words all the time i have a librarian so she sent this one back along with anonymity okay i think we need to break

105now okay sorry uh but we will come back and have more discussion the question um i would ask that you have them written down in a way that we can maybe uh make formal motion if you call them yeah just to be aware because this this will be an area we'll have to be very uh detailed on so perfect okay we will resume at six o'clock before thank you kimberly parallel it's coming shake our hands let's do that and it's family can you stand up and feel recognize you do we know that it takes oh here we go here we go [Music] so [Music] to design a building here did we have your family stand up for today okay thank you that's exciting to have you with us um we really appreciate your attendance here

106tonight but just you know if you want to leave it's not inappropriate to go ahead but it's exciting okay um my time is now set aside for community comments it is not a time to discuss specific personnel issues personal issues are not appropriate for an open meeting environment personal concern we ask the member of the administration what's your concern in writing and address the board of education we also wanted to mention that we have a large number of online comment public comments that board members have read everything so we have allowed for 30 minutes of public comment so we'd like everybody to find the remarks for three minutes each you'll see the timer on the screen so if you could wrap it up as you see that coming in close that would be great this

107is kind of an interesting evening we have i think a number of people who are concerned with library books and i think last time somebody was about to like read an excerpt from a library book that they felt was more graphic and they saw a child in the audience and decided not to read it i would also ask that tonight so we will go ahead and get started and by the way again this isn't a debate the board isn't going to respond to you so you just make your comment if you have if you have a question though there are members of the staff here that could help you tonight or they can get so we'll go ahead and start with stephanie jones rachel everett and then corey borick so go ahead stephanie librarian for

10818 years i have loved my job i recently left america i am currently working as the coordinator of k-12 libraries the tears are continuing it has been a frustrating time for many people as we strive to find the best balance for our students for her good parents and for librarians i address you tonight to advocate for several things to affirm several beliefs of the libraries in alpine school district i don't think you will find a group of educators who are more passionate about the students they serve or the world that we play i am here to advocate for one that the school board and district administration which states that books should remain on the shelf until they have had a chance to go the full reconsideration process i ask that the attorney general's opinion be

109taken in its entirety it involves more than a bright light fall to follow stays on it also balances federal law and then we have to find an analysis that the books be read in their entirety i request the board i hope at some point respectfully we ask that the teacher librarian is being involved in a thorough betting of that policy there are things that we wholeheartedly support i think as a whole there are many things we can apply restricted thank you so much moment only opens more problems than incentives and what's referring to librarians care deeply about their students and believe struggling that we represent the best of our schools librarians work tirelessly to provide age-appropriate materials that provide engagement and relevance to our readers we build readers from the first grader who has learned

110the excitement power of reading to the eighth grader who needs that fire rekindled to the high school senior that we hope we are prepared to be a literate member of society we believe that the best way for all to have a voice is through a policy that allows for due places and we believe it is the right responsibility of parents to guide their learning it when there is a problem with access to material that the conversation will start in the library we thank the board and the administrators for the time they've taken to the sunnyvale board members have met with librarians we have a listen to our input we appreciate the public support that has been expressed by son and again we ask for those two things the 52 books being returned and that we

111have a more effective thank you the next uh all right my name is rachel everett and i am first and foremost i am a mom and a second i'm a teacher i'm internationally certified as an academic language practitioner which is calp for short c-a-l-p i'm currently working on requirements to become an academic language therapist calt calt for short you can find more information about calps and celts on altarread.org you might not be familiar with the term calper celt a calper cal provides explicit systematic sequential multi-sensory structured language instruction which which builds a high degree of accuracy knowledge and independency for students with written language disorders well what's a written language disorder the most well known is dyslexia dyslexia if you had to guess how many capsular cows were in alpine school district how many would

112you guess unfortunately we only have one with two of my colleagues in training right now according to yale dyslexia effects 20 of the population and represents 80 to 90 percent of those with learning disabilities and ieps it is the most common neurocognitive disorder the literacy project reports that 85 of juvenile offenders have reading problems research from will put in 2004 research from will cut gaffney and brown indicated that 40 of children diagnosed with dyslexia suffer from depression and anxiety and research from the national institute of child health development demonstrated that 74 of children with reading disabilities who are not identified in schools until third grade will continue to experience reading difficulties in the ninth grade we need a better multi-tiered system of support in some of the elementaries they have a great tier one and

113tier two support um that is based in the science of reading which is 95 i think it's excellent however what is missing is that tier three warren gillingham approach in our district with highly trained teachers and dyslexia therapists that is multi-sensory structured systematic and sequential and cumulative this represents a multi-department issue in alpine school district it's an elementary literacy problem it's a secondary literacy problem it's a special education problem it's a student equity education equity problem and it's a student support service problem many of our alpine school district families have to go outside the district to get adequate reading help what about those families that can't afford this luxury as a district we desperately as a district we are desperately attempting to help these families however we lack the resources and trained staff our district

114needs additional certified calps and cuts to address this overwhelming deficit i am so grateful for the support and the insight that they had to include upper grades in the letters training but this is still we still need more training thank you thank you good afternoon members of the board my name is corey and i attended alpine school district for 13 years the entirety of my public education and i continued this community after graduating high school as a student in the district i gained a great love for the written word and an appreciation for civic involvement which greatly informs my decision to comment here today i respect and value the first amendment the ability to communicate freely as i learned from several utilities outlet south high school district moved 52 books right from library circulation prior

115to review while the reasons for censoring these titles is different for each one there are a disproportionate amount of books with themes and stories involving queer people people of color and victims of sexual assault i was only a short few years ago in great need rather it appears that this policy has been formed by the request of some constituents including members of the partisan group until parents united i do not believe there was enough consideration for ultimate perspectives prior to this action the utah library association's recent statement in these books might not be right for every reader but school librarians work with parents and caregivers every day to help them find appropriate materials for their children we believe that parents and caregivers have the right to discuss reading and book selections for our children however

116they do not have the right to make these crucial decisions for other families close quote by promoting this degree of censorship in our schools i hear the words the right to make informed decisions about their education in addition to remove looks prior to assessment due to part partisan reactionary statements is an exercise of fear restraint by the board this exercise prior to it removes the ability for discussion and debate as the literary mirror of the title is provided and of any concerning material assuming the looks to be guilty before innocent as established by the president of the supreme court decision minnesota priority must be exercised only in extreme cases of constitutionality by government bodies i do not believe this decision meets those criteria i request that the members of the board engage with review and

117read these materials themselves as being transparent with parents and students regarding the decision-making criteria i also ask as a formal student former student to keep these books within circulation during central review in respect of the first amendment thank you thank you for your comment next we'll have john barrack julianne peterson and stephanie grant my name is john barrica a tax professor and professional for over 30 years including giving advice to the us congress i am not against taxes but i am against portraying something that's clearly a tax increase calling something that's clearly a tax increase is tax neutral that's simply dishonest i watch the may and june board meetings with y2 analytics and i object to the way they phrased and worded the language though you make the survey public i understand grammar request has

118been denied as the remaining 2011 and 2016 bonds come off property owners will receive a tax decrease in the debt levy replacing those bonds with new bonds is a tax increase even if actual taxes are more than the property owners are currently paid adding more bonds with additional years of payments is a tax increase even if the annual taxes don't increase over the period property taxes are leaned against levied against property and when the bonds are paid off that release is given back to the property owners given that the proposed bond is larger than the current general obligation debt and in the face of rising interest rates and current construction challenges this is an epic tax increase forbes magazine said it best like many terms in politics no tax increase in front of bonds is

119supposed to point the opposition to new taxes but let's be clear there's no special category of bonds that school districts issue that doesn't increase your taxes no tax increase bonds increase your taxes he says first it's dishonest second it thwarts oversight transparency and accountability and finally it undermines the fundamental truth of the things we want cost money i believe education in utah is underfunded but i don't believe the way you're going about this bond like posting it's on your agenda at 3 28 yesterday afternoon is transparent we came to you this spring for help asking for some help from our elementary school all you did is listen nothing changed i'm going to give you a few thoughts about transparency why is there no credible information for your priority list on your bond you're a one

120billion dollar entity your budget is not transparent you have not updated the budget you've updated at least three times and still has a may 31st date with version one in the title even though it's been updated three times you use lease revenue but your use of these revenue bonds is not transparent you are for the 17th year in a row you are playing seismic roulette with the children of the alpine school district because since 2006 you've known about seismic issues very poor schools that are unremediated stop building palaces on the west side thank you for your comments uh julian peterson my name is julian peterson and i'm sitting here at west lake high school as you discuss policy 6161 instructional materials it's for tonight i would ask that you consider the people that this will

121affect the most the students censorship divides us it prevents representation from groups that need it the most and can make kids feel singled out and unwanted by the slot by the society they must live in in the first amendment it guarantees our right to read what we choose and that even applies to music the law protects the right of a parent to guide what their child reads but no parent has the right to decide what another child can and can't read i feel it's especially important for unrepresented groups to see themselves reflected in the books in a library collection many books that have been challenged in schools are based solely on the fact that they include lgbtq or bi-talk characters marginalized people deserve to be representative represented on library shelves in fact it is a

122vital it is vital that they are living another person's experience that is different from your own uh through a book is how we gain empathy and understanding between others it's how we learn and it is how we become kinder and better nazis in germany didn't want the german populist to have empathy for people that were different from them so they banned and burned books that weren't aligned with their ideals a student in china today isn't allowed to read books that weren't improved by her approved by her government because they want her to think what they allow her to think censorship is a form of control over others such as great fear and mistrust censorship is a threat to democracy that upholds freedom of speech thank you stephanie grant okay i want to talk about the

123bond for a minute so aurum is is probably sorry sorry worm is forming their own district because alpine keeps taking their school selling their land and you have a bunch more schools on the chopping block so orem is now going to be forming their own district and if you guys are trying to pass this massive huge bond we're going to be responsible for a huge amount because losing more is detrimental to how much i mean they you know from like the past hundred years is the number one contributor to the district so we do not want this bond cost especially where you're not telling us where the money goes and even if you do tell us where the money goes then you can still change your mind you're allowed to just like when you guys

124said that that bond was for sarah but it didn't use it for sarah so there's we don't want i'm just advocating to not pass the bond and also those books are so explicit that you asked us not to read them here but are there in the schools of our children this is like it's i don't understand how we have a librarian here telling us that she's like almost in tears please bring back these pornographic books for her kids if that's the kind of representation that is happening for my children i don't want those kind of people around my kids that is those books are so pornographic and sexually explicit and you guys have seen enough of them you don't want to look at them so the fact that these we've got kids up here thinking

125they want to read that stuff like i also don't want the chromebooks i don't like kids having also access to less online stuff like i don't know why our schools keep advocating for getting them more online or online let's go back to the books like the actual history books that we don't use anymore and and i need you guys to be stronger about this i just listen to your session and you guys need to have a stronger backbone don't just don't just leave this to a group of parents with no names or a group of selective people with no names to the site you guys can take a stand and protect porn out of the schools it's against the law to let it hit schools and people will be held responsible for putting that each

126other under kids because that is not okay and if it's too explicit to read in here it's too explicit in schools right especially children and junior high kids thank you julie walker i am julie walker um i hate public speaking uh the last time i spoke to the board uh was in 2016 where i came humbly asked that cascade elementary be placed on the bond for a full rebuild no more patches a full rebound and you put us on the board and you built us a brand new school and it's beautiful and the people of cascade are so appreciative and so is boyce campbell the good people of cascade we're very appreciative but i'm not here to talk about cascade i am here as the forum council pta president where i have been serving for

127five years i'm an orem resident and i am representing 2200 voting members of pta in aura and that equates to almost six thousand children in february i asked the orem city council we went to the oregon city council meeting and i gave a statement saying that we supported them doing a feasibility study just as we support any city in a district this size to do their due diligence and i also asked that the orange city council invites the pta to send a member representative from each of our three councils in ireland to sit down and look at that feasibility study and ask all of our questions because the motto of the pta is all children one voice and we wanted to speak for the children they released their study in july i didn't into my

128knowledge no pta member has received a phone call a text message an email we had written a letter a postcard message or the bat signal so i'm not here to say the pta is for or against any kind of a split i'm here to let you know that they have not consulted with the pta the largest advocacy group that speaks children now when it comes to the bond there are many capital concerns across the district and there are many capital concerns dire concerns in order and we support a bond if that's going to make a safe learning environment for all children all children and that's all i needed to see thank you thank you person um as was mentioned my name is sarah parson and i am the mother i also hate speaking in public

129i am the mother of five children who attend schools i am also the granddaughter of holocaust survivors and as such feel very strongly about working to create a more just and equitable world where everyone is safe respected and represented history has shown us the terrible price paid when the other those we see is different that's the terrible price of bigotry and hatred of indifference and silence scott king the wife of reverend martin the third king jr said i don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others reverend martin luther king jr said injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied to a single garment of destiny whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly so today i wanted

130to address the concerns i have also about the future of the books i am concerned about the process done i am concerned about the motivations and reasonings for acting so hastily before a policy was created or approved first speaker i feel that i don't know her name but she did a wonderful job explaining many of the reasons and concerns that i have so i'm going to skip those but i want to focus my comments on a little bit of a more personal nature creating a space and environment where all voices and all children are heard and feel seen and safe should be the aim of all districts classrooms and teachers removing these 52 books does the exact opposite of creating safe spaces where all children feel seen and represented books humanize people we may otherwise

131separate ourselves from because we think they are different than we are or we don't understand their experiences or beliefs books create empathy thank you next is michelle sorensen and i have five children all who have attended in my last is now a sophomore at two congress high school i am actively involved in pta and attended the region training last week i want to thank dr farnsworth and each of your board members who showed up to lend your support to us as a district pta we appreciate having a seat at the table with oakland school district and a venue to be involved where teachers administrators parents work together to set common goals voice concerns and work together for the benefit of all i would like to verbally note that i am in support of putting the

1322022 block on the ballot and will vote in support of this proposition there are some in orem who may narrowly look at the monies that warm taxpayers pay into a bond however i think that this is a very narrow-minded picture that they are looking at forum city requested through grandma requests an updated review of the 2017 feasibility study with 2021 budget numbers although this document was not ready before the discovery educational consultants or feasibility study was completed it was given later to dec orem city government leader and council members and other citizens who have requested this information the updated document shows that former schools benefit from a yearly 29 million dollar deficit which provides additional full-time equipment special needs programs and provides a more complete picture of how foreign students profit in an additional one

133thousand dollars in funding support per student i would like to thank alpine school district for your support and investment in all of the children of our district and especially those in warren city thank you we really appreciate your comments and maybe just to summarize i appreciate stephanie's comments about following policy and returning books and reading books in their entirety i appreciate rachel talking about the need of support for students with dyslexia i love having students come to speak to the board so corey excellent i thought you were very eloquent in talking about the importance of the first amendment and the dangers of censorship john merrick i appreciate your comments on being transparent and how we talk about tax increases um appreciate uh julianne uh peterson again another student i i just think you're amazing and

134the way you represented yourself and i guess the thing i picked out is that uh other representative groups really need to see themselves in books so thank you for that comment uh stephanie grant we appreciate your comment and sets of concern in passing the bond in the face of uncertainty uh district future and your desire to make sure that you're not in schools julie walker we appreciate your comments uh and i uh i have to tell you that i think elementary is pretty amazing and i appreciate that as well as your desire to have pta and involved in these issues that where they can really contribute sarah parson we appreciate talking about the price of censoring books creating self-space spaces safe spaces for children and uh michelle smurfs and thank you for your support and

135your representation of the pta as well so thank you for all of our public comment again we really appreciate that and it provides us kind of a window into what people are thinking about and uh the board really desires to know what our people are thinking so along with these i can't remember at last but it seemed like about 100 online comments as well that the board's read so thank you for all the feedback we will now move on to the next item in the agenda which is the approval of minutes is there a motion discussion all in favor say aye aye you have received your claims for the month and i recommend your acceptance of the claims is your motion i hope that we accept any discussion all in favor say hi hi can

136you post next item is routine buzz business that includes a budget summary the alpine foundation board summary personnel hiring releases student trip requests and las specific licenses i'll second it okay we'll move into our action items i would invite carrie milner and voice campbell to come forward appreciate them representing our elementary literacy efforts each year required we are required to look forward so um we first just want to show you this is our early learning leadership team and we came together in june and we met together and discussed what we do from last year and discussed what our goals will be for this upcoming year so um we're going to just go and talk a little bit about the goals from last year there were the state required that we have a state growth goal

137for literacy and they also require two local goals for literacy this was from last year so the growth goal was sixty percent of the students would achieve typical or better growth according to the canadians reading assessment and we were able to accomplish that um this slide right here kind of shows some historical data and it appears that we're on an upward swing which and those two goals were not met last year okay so this coming year the requirement for this grant is that we have literacy and ethicals so the state will require that we have 60 percent or better typical or better growth in literacy according to the canadians assessment 60 percent typical of better growth according to the mathematics assessment which voice is it's a new assessment and then we have one local goal

138for literacy one local go for math so you'll now see that they had brought these math goals on and then one local goal of your choice which was chosen so what is this funding this is hospital 114 and the purpose of this funding is to increase the capacity of the purpose of the funding is to increase the quality of instruction for our pre-k through third grade so i'm going to turn the time over to boyce and he's going to talk a little bit about how they're using their funding from this houseboat this year is to identify at-risk students but then the state has asked us to make goals on that as well but it is just based on that screening uh again the growth goal that the state has set for system 60 growth we

139have only given it for one year so we don't have multiple years to look at so we just have last year's um and last year with our uh our first time giving it students our teachers not knowing much about it we met 51 of our students in grades one through three typically better growth so our goals is as carrick mentioned we have we have our growth goal to meet 60 but we also set specific goals for proficiency and this is how much we change from our beginning of year to the end of the year and so it's the students against themselves and proficiency how much percentage my proficiency from the beginning from the first benchmark to the final benchmark at the end of the year and what the state asked us to do is to

140do a three to five percent increase on what we had last year and so if we look at this is for first grade our goal for this year is to raise that by two percent uh last year we actually went down by three percent and so we made a five percent increase by setting a goal to increase by two percent does that make sense that gives us a positive two percent increase in circle for this year for first grade and our second goal is proficiency in third grade with our third graders stayed even from beginning of years increased uh we're continuing with our vision for learning and making sure that we teach math for understanding uh we have a great uh math support team outlined partnering this year where each of our math math specialists

141is partnered with one of our k-6 elementary supervisors so they're each assigned to a um to a division thank you and they'll be uh to meet those goals and us as curriculum directors will be meeting we're going with the elementary supervisors meetings with the individual schools with the principal so that we can help support them with the goals that they've made in the coherence map that we're doing as a district and we also have grade level specialists that are excited this year to help support schools in closing the mathematics gap because just continuing our rpd with our new implementation of ready and helping helping our schools cmi training and our partnership with byu foreign um is comprehensive math instruction and uh there are we have currently five schools that are receiving the construction with the

142partnership with byu so it's two years the school's opted to do it where it's focused more on the standards and which we did last year we're hopeful that's this year that and we are going to increase the acadian's reading by nine percent of the year to the end of the year and how we calculated that was we took the average of the last three years from the beginning of the year to the end of the year that was a five percent increase over the last three years we had three to five percent for rigor we added four percent and um just talking about closing the gap and what the literacy team and department is going to do is um we were able to increase summer starts last year so we're able to help a lot

143of additional students so that was exciting and fun to go out and watch those summer schools go on this summer we have full day kindergarten and we have one of our schools that's 35 classrooms that we have built in keyboard i am a prior kindergarten teacher so this is exciting to me um fun for me to talk about and we also will continue with the optional enhanced kindergarten in four of our schools we also partner like boyce said i need my glasses on because i cannot see that far away i can see there's nothing so boys talked a little bit about us partnering with the supervisors and meeting with the principles and helping support them how can we help support them as a literacy team and meeting their goals so we partnered with them each

144director has partnered with the supervisor plus a tsa from to each team we also have our grade level specialist so teachers need a specialist like a kindergarten specialist or a first grade specialist sometimes you know a coach may not know everything from kindergarten sixth grade so they can reach out to one of our team members and saying hey i need some time specifically with kindergarten tell us i'm going to talk a little bit more about the kindergarten literacy team the teacher leader team here in a minute we partner with plc coaches we have a reading interventionist in 25 schools and then we have the ongoing letters for our pk through sixth grade teachers and our principals and assistant principals this is just a slide that shows our partnerships for our team members and then also

145a menu it's not all exclusive it's how we can help support our teachers and skills um there's our graduate specialist we will also have we also have websites that are specific for kindergarten through sixth grade that the teachers can go to and find resources specific to their grade level so this leadership team will be using the monies from this grant to form this uh leader this literacy leadership team it's k through three so we will have a teacher from k1 band and teach they'll meet once a month they'll receive a stipend for their work and some of the topics that we're going to cover during that time is canadians with goal setting the pathways to progress aligning instruction with the science of reading what we're learning from letters talking about explicit systematic instruction and phonics

146comprehension and writing small group instruction the implementation from our letters um what we're learning from that and teaching high frequency words in the importance of text reading and then these these teachers will come will learn together um research based learning and then they'll go back and share that information with their team is all we have members you so thank you thank you i appreciate that report if you want to stay there for just a second to entertain any questions you thought you were going to escape i wasn't sure um so carrie just wanted to specifically give a shout out i actually happened to run into one of my kindergarten teachers and she was talking specifically about how well the students had done just clear rocketed with stars and so so grateful that like esther money

147was able to be directed there since it's such a solid program she also was communicating to me that the students who were not hitting their goals struggled with attendance and so i'm wondering have we tied whether it's through stars or just through our traditional like school year are we kind of tracking attendance with with the success and student achievement because my concern is that as we've struggled with attendance this past year um how much that is tied to like particularly i'm guessing with boyce because when i think of math math is extremely foundational right so if you miss monday and tuesday when the instructions happening and then wednesday thursday friday you're there and you've kind of missed the instruction it's more like the practice occurring um i would imagine that sometimes hard to kind of

148catch up and then for kids who miss consistently trying to mitigate that is extremely complicated so um and i realize that's probably pure speculation but do you feel like attendance is attached like for example with them struggling with the math goals and are we kind of tracking how attendance is attached to that because it feels like that's obviously something not in control of our teachers but something that maybe we can communicate a little bit clearly with our communities about how essential attendance is so i'm just curious if you guys have if you've tracked data or if you have a response as to if you think attendance is impacting that i'm sure you remember the attendance of 30 or more absences across the district increased to like 11 so like three years ago there was only

149about under 500 students who missed 30 or more days of school in elementary this past year there was almost 5 000 students so we know that it's an issue we talked i know we talked with jason with assessment the director of assessment about trying to think that together where we see these kids um have not noticed a correlation and some schools have so i think it varies by that community and the demographics appreciation for the connections that i feel that the southern with michelle things happening with these content specialists and in my area especially an english language so i'm excited i have a question this is a statement is the test for the beginning of year this is what the kids know this is what they know so far for what they need to know

150by the end of the year if that makes sense so for example if i have been defined giving the test to a third grader the concepts they're taking and what they're supposed to do for the end of the year the cut score but the reality is that students are not two percent worse than they were at the beginning of the year it's just worse any other comments questions thank you so much excellent presentations so we need a motion to approve the early learning plan for hp 114 gritty hi we will go through resolution 2022-015 this is the authorization of purchasing property approximately of cedar valley high school on aviator boulevard if you go to the very end of the road turn left it's in the field on the right for the smith family this is

151when we approved our capitol facility meeting back in june we did it on the july to the court school site to help offset continuing growth um i move that we pass resolution 2022-015 authorizing the property purchase for approximately acres located in eagle mountain utah emotion from julia's second floor discussion i mean we just need a lot of schools i don't even know what to say like there are so many kids in our schools so yes please thank you the biggest is a 2004 flatbed utility trailer surplus of a 2004 flatbed utility i would hesitate to go past a discussion i think you need a different vehicle is facilities discussion the only question i have is um so i know that when we put cell towers on schools the schools get the income um rob is

152this going to physical facilities just didn't know if i needed to like arm wrestle frank about where that might be okay thank you for some facilities subject to board appropriation i somewhat hesitate to move on without seeing our wrestlemania we had a dance conference uh arm wrestling could make any other discussion on this uh let's go ahead and vote all in favor of resolution 2022-17 authorized approval released motion passes this which allows more more better use of that uh i swear to gear on the grass and so we had some field playing fields and now it can be circulated um to try to get it finished and that's the speed with which that happened was available the community is very appreciative that it was able to be finished and ready and utilized by so many

153of our students the resolution passes thank you resolution 2022-019 district this is the home in the east you will fight this was a fairly significant increase in the price of the offer the price uh the home that's located on was listed at 679 000. they had six offers four of them being cash offers the yes a home built by our students how wonderful is that the final offer that was accepted was a cash offer 855 000 no contingencies which means therefore no appraisal it's just incredible um what michelle and her team hope to be able to do with any of those profits is help secure future properties so that our students can continue to carry on with this program it is so difficult to secure property and to afford property at this time so it

154was a great sale but we desperately need those dollars i'd like to move that we pass resolution 2022-019 to sale authorizing the sale of cte home gave me a private tour and we looked at every detail of the house and it is stunning to see one high school students with a lot of supervision and a lot of training to see what they did it was remarkable that is a solid house and it's right across the street from cascade elementary and there's a lot of writing story that i think they're also going to be building on so i am delighted that our students can produce something of this quality and have those skills as they gradually high school go out into the job market what an incredible achievement for these kids and great buy for them

155and uh i think it's amazing the number of students uh she pointed out that um this class that did this they pull from five different high schools so it's kind of a program which benefits a large area of our district have cd programs that are like magnet programs so for example training campus whereas mountain view has and computer things so our cte programs tend to specialize so they do come together and to create something like this any discussion this is the authorizing the big bond election for november 8th 2022 um taxes and discussed the information from y2 analytics but i want to go back to talk about two findings first the study that we shared and prepared with the work of our capital team what our five to ten year plan was and that's this

156one right here that you guys have in your documents that five to ten year plan outlined where do we have significant growth needs for new construction where are the needs for the regeneration of communities or seismic issues or renovation we had items that were listed and prioritized there we had also property acquisition that was noted and where where is that needed based on enrollment and then finally we had our safety and security that we're continuing to do we focused on that in 2016 and we want to continue to focus there so we out we laid out a five to ten year plan and we discussed what if we were to look at the areas of growth and renovation rebuilds you know addressing some of those seismic needs the age of facilities two of our last

157final high schools are 1959 facilities we discussed that quite a bit property and then safety so as we shared that with you we also shared it with the third party company who we hired to seek information from the public first through focus groups and then through a survey what we did is we took the information from our five to ten year capital plan to put some ideas out there just to get some feedback so as was noted in an earlier presentation high school was needed in middle school several elementaries on that growth lens and then the idea of our two oldest high schools whether it's pg af we wanted to see what the community's response would be for those and then also some aging facilities that we've got in pockets of the district whether it's

158in the forum area the lyndon area the lehigh area eva alpine has an aging facility we looked at some of those and then finally security safety and security we always want to make sure that our kids feel safe that's a key component to helping all kids achieve at the highest levels and we've been attempting to do that by putting cameras in our schools camera systems that are functioning through a central location that is centralized so that we're not doing like okay you have a camera system from costco you have another one from you know marshall you have we need to have a centralized camera system so that we can then coordinate with our city local law enforcement as well so we've been trying to fight to that and then also we made sure all of

159our elementary schools have push button logs we want to now target moving forward in a new bond initiative all of our secondary schools having that pushback system so that's where we landed we also got the results and they are posted on the website david stevens said this video looks so awesome i don't know if any of you have looked on the website and seen the findings that are listed there from y2 analytics it will also include i know we had a gentleman discuss the full presentation from y2 analytics that if it's not already there it will be there we do want our public to see a full version but what you have in front of you is a summarized version of that study and those findings that were presented by y2 analytics i want to

160say just over a month ago so you see that up on the screen for those of you that are here visiting or the public that's watching it from online that you can see there's a support represented a representative support that would say okay board of ed is you have to make a decision right now are you are we ready to go for a bond there is an initial support much like we did in 2016 i would say there's a likelihood of voter support for it what questions would you have can you just speak our board of education studied um what was the response from the public if we were to go for a 2020 bond or should we defer for a couple of years we were in the pandemic and times were hard times but

161we could describe today's times as being difficult but the board cared to see what the public wanted and the public said we want you to do all of these other things before you go out for another general obligation bond which is maximizing the use of our facilities initially they said maybe we create more of an online model but after the pandemic it was like heck no don't let that direction so but what it's done to impact us ada as you mentioned that is we're busting at the seams do you remember that cartoon that we made in the 2016 bond of the what's the name of the family johnsonville you know our school houses are that's that's how we feel especially in the west now we have other pockets where we're not growing in fact we

162have some decline but we're watching those closely we partner with rob's team that studies enrollments financial options so we are making sure we're not only focusing on the growth but we also are looking to keep equitable health across the district that's important to us it always has to the board of education for alpine school district um i think the superintendent shared some information with you based on the 2006 really study and it was a document that showed all of the work that's been done since the 2006 was a two page well a page and a half document and if i could just like summarize everything in the right hand column rebuild rebuild rebuild rebuild so our recommendation from staff is to recommend going for a 595 million dollar bond on it could you just briefly

163give us an overview of the timeline you know what i mean so again here we are we've not specifically okay so between september and october we'll do some towards the end of the month we'll we'll meet again as a capital team to finalize some of those projects and then we will take information out to our public so much like we do with our any other like listening tour we'll do a capital campaign information tour that will go to all 93 schools but also to areas in the public that the voters who may not have children attending alpine school district it's important for us to help provide them information about the why the how and how it will impact taxes the clarification for y2 analytics was we were speaking specifically with a tax rate not your

164taxes that you received from the county so there will be some clarification and information that we would like to present that will help people understand what do we mean by the tax rate and the layering of the bonds that we typically do to keep that tax rate steady for our taxpayers so that they don't see peaks and valleys you know along the way we try to keep things consistent so that we don't have great clients i mean all of us remotely and i specifically asked the question we're talking about the tax rate and on the actual tax amount and she confirmed that harry clearly and i just want there to be no mistake we're not trying to be deceptive september and october provide what they need and then we'll also gather information that will go

165to our voters there's the ballot information that we were required the voter information that we're required to send to all of our registered voters okay so basically if the board approves that tonight we start gathering information we're going to schedule to get that out to our schools and communities to provide information as we speak to what projects would be considered important we learned a lot from the 2016 bond remember when we went to the level of specificity that we did all the way through the fourth phase it caused it caused us hardship so we want to look at how we address our needs but also when we think what are we you know specifying is going to happen when we have to be careful we see inflation happening we see prices changing construction costs we'll

166just be very careful and thoughtful on that before we go out with the information they can give me from kimberly with respect to capital projects just to piggyback off what kimberly said is just maybe wrong and articulating to our public leader when we have kind of an information it's maybe explaining to our patrons the legal issue are we legally found if we go out for a bond and we're not able to finish some of those projects or all of those projects because of inflation just like you had mentioned um through something similar but what would that look like for our people so thank you foreign inflationary numbers so the longer your bond goes out the more susceptible you are to price risk and interest rate risk another declining interest rate environment i expect the federal

167market to meet with race rates but um when you look at that alpine school district regardless of funds has completed every project that it has put on a board to the public whether that be through bond dollars or capital dollars utilizing existing resources so this board has been not only transparent but as it has kept its commitments that's one of the reasons um if you would share some information with the public there was a public library about uh the bond and how it affects tax rates could you just provide some information than any other additional information do you think would be helpful for the board that we have and you'll see this in the draft resolution in your board meeting packets for the public if they really would like to look at it on page

16891 that's where it starts the actual resolution page 92 [Music] not only um what the total amount is and what the maturity is but what the estimated impact you'll find on page 94. not filled out because we were still updating those calculations constraints are changing there was a comment earlier about a new bond just like a new mortgage that you would take or a new rv that you would go into debt for there is an interest cost there is a payment or immunization schedule and there's an estimated impact is what that looks like for a 595 million but if the bonds were issued in four phases 150 million in the first phase what you see in the blue section right below that is if the voters said yes we will use some of our dollars

169here is what that memorization schedule looks like alpine school district is one of very few government entities that have a rapid repayment schedule um mortgage is closer to a 15-year mortgage and the reason we do that is we pay less interest it's a higher payment but there's less interest cost why would we do that because we're a growing district so it makes sense to do a little more principle because there might be additional capital fees so a 15-year mortgage ours on average is 17 years so that's what you see in the blue section and then if you look at that and say if this bond elections this is a requirement we must be transparent with our taxpayers as required if this bond stood alone what would the impact be so i like looking at graphs

170i also like looking at excel that's one of the reasons i've got these now even though i'm still going up if you scroll down just a little bit the graph shows it if this pawn stood alone that's what the debt service or the schedule looks like right there in the middle there's nothing hidden there's nothing that we would not disclose to our taxpayers the actual amount of that one of the things that's interesting here scroll to the right just a little bit and that calculation assumptions perfect thank you we went for a bond in 2016 the fair market value of the average loan was 275 what's happened in six years this is the median it's actually 499 800. i didn't want to put 499 800 in there so i rounded it to 500 000. the

171average is 554 000 very different than what it was six years ago again the assumptions here is always critical 17-year close to a 15-year amortization four percent borrowing rate currently and again i got this default market update this last week it said the third year was 2.91 so current interest rates for a triple a rated entity like outbreak alpine is one of very few in utah aaa bond ratings which is the highest credit score per credit score that a government agency could have from both moody's and fetch so we borrow at very good rates so currently it's 2.91 i expect the fomc to increase that at their next meeting 50 basis points is my guess maybe 75 but again in my office we're debating that right now um even at 50 basis points we're at

1723.4 we've estimated that if that holds true and those assumptions hold true the issue bonds the way that it says the estimated impact for these bonds on the average home is cents per year or about 18 months that's what this bond will cost to provide housing for kids to rebuild facilities on a business the impact of this bond will be 382.20 the difference between the two primary residents receiving 45 exception in the state of utah to encourage homeownership homeownership by families create stable communities which create wonderful communities businesses don't receive that exception so that's the two numbers right but it's important i think all of these figures superintendent thank you he is amazing this is the great transition to the next slide so this is if the bond sit alone i'm so grateful to work

173with such an amazing community page now again if you like to look like excel spreadsheets i like to look at excel spreadsheets but i'm going to go to the graphics what this shows is the debt service debt service with a new potential bond layered because of the way we structure it we create holes if you make that just a little bit bigger david you can see the gray is the existing bonus so if we layer those new bonds in holes that we've created because which assumes a pretty conservative growth of three percent our tax value growth last year was 35.4 so that assumes a three percent trend line in year four through the will be the same or less than it currently is there is no one here trying to say it doesn't over would

174you go to the business services webpage i want to point out two things including the really bad picture of the business administrator i apologize for that i can't fix that i really would like to this is my team here tonight there's some of the finest human beings from public and nancy fisher on the left hand side in the very top says district union budget david if you click on that this is available to the public if you'll scroll down to the third page if pages yes um is if you want to see class sizes is so please get out of with all of that the rest um i questions this is very conservative for a few years um double yes is um first of all we're having a very critical discussion and this is a

175very important part of that discussion because this is a sizeable bond and frankly orem is not likely to see the book however and i know just is i think sometimes we really want the people who are benefiting um and um okay and it's difficult because the list of needs is very low and we have needs from schools that are bursting in the scenes to schools that are small and are older um it's not gonna go as far as we would like and so i think it's important for us to remember also that the district doesn't only do capital projects with bonders we have capital dollars that we use from other sources to do a lot fine but you know at the same time my children's junior high mountain ridge also got a new roof well

176that didn't come from bond it came from other district dollars and we have built entire schools from other district dollars and we have met needs seismic needs from other district dollars and so i think as a community we have to look at what all the children of our community need and we have to be willing to say this bond may not address something in my immediate neighborhood but that's okay because when i have a need the district's gonna make sure my school gets what it needs and um and we're gonna do that we're gonna make sure these schools get what they need so i hope that as a community we can look at that together and i think also it's funny to me sometimes when people say they don't want to pay for schools in

177the west because other people that don't know people in the west because my family lives all over this valley and i know kids and i have kids that i care about these cities and i want them all to be successful so um for me it's it's a it's a support discussion um so i have the privilege of sitting on the finance committee as well as the capital planning committee so i look at dollars and i also look at needs and um it's not something lightly especially when it comes to tax dollars i also represent an area that has phenomenal growth i remember i took a couple of the board members to one of my schools and we were just chatting with principals about you know the challenges they were facing many of my elementary schools

178are over 1200 over 1100 it's very common on the west for there to be would be a dream i think there were some jobs that hit the floor a little bit because i don't think that number is the norm in other school areas but the reality is we are putting in satellites we are putting in portables we are doing all the things that we can do we've done boundary changes people really don't like the online school option um we've done everything that we can do and the reality is we have a lot of students we have one project specifically in saratoga springs that is fascinating because they build the walls off site and then basically bring in the walls of the crane and set them in it's like they build a lego house in a

179couple of days and so even while i live in saratoga springs it's kind of disconcerting how fast it goes um and just to give you an idea um that development is approved for 1900 homes 1280 of them are not in process yet we have 1500 active residential building permits saratoga springs like when we talk about how we're running out of options that's the reality we are running out of options we are doing everything we can to stretch dollars to be intentional with dollars because we are very well aware that the decisions that we make as a board impact of the district and i'm just talking about my area that we're not talking about all of the areas where we're talking about rebalance and seismic issue and safety issues and growth and other dynamics um it's

180a lot and we are trying to problem solve as best we can um i even advocated with kimberly that maybe we should take it up a little bit because i do feel that two year delay um it's been really really hard um even with this emergency build of this school in eagle mountain we have three schools over a thousand best case scenario those schools we buy them two years three years until they're in the same situation again so um it is a problem that we continue to try to be creative with and the reality where we is out of options the have a moral is to take care of stuff like that no teacher and no student should have to teach us dive bombing the teachers at night so i live in a community that

181has both growth and seismic issues and i think dry creek was ready to split 30 seconds after they opened they have been i mean we just have giant schools and for me this is so important because actually most numbers if you haven't been in a school with a thousand kids or 1100 kids it's really remarkable what our schools do i hate that they have to do it because that's just too many kids to be in one place you know they can't even get everybody in a gym for uh sometimes so um i'm very much in support of this i they've been so patient for so many years i'm just amazed i probably would have thrown a few years ago so um um maybe close with a compliment to our business team so we have not

182been sitting idly by for the last two years they have been refinancing bonds to create a home hole knowing that it was going to be coming down i cannot believe the amount of planning that occurs again to make sure there's no surprises that we're able to meet the needs of the district and again thank you also to kimberly because this 10-year plan is pretty much unprecedented i've never seen it in this district or any other district and to be looking out ahead so that there's no surprises that we know what things are going to happen i think is amazing so thank you so much for that having said that we'll go ahead now and vote in the resolution passes not the bond somebody make sure thank you very we much have some policy that we

183are ready to discuss executive director of legal services so we'll start with policy 30 3005 business permit board members have received all these in their four documents craig you can give it just a little background there and then we'll open it up for a motion and discussion and motion the is so that being said i'm happy to um simply stated um okay other main changes you'll see here this is really a simplification which yeah um any questions is two questions great thank you so much is um final question is once it's retired what's the picture i was trying to lighten things up a little you know any discussions thank you we worked with the attorney general's office and disabled is 3b there's some clarifications okay foreign again appropriate questions was is um these are some

184additional qualifications uh is with disabilities surface with service animals but i there's some but it's just i know a little bit about foreign is that geared towards other students that have allergies if they fall under that yes and if so thank you because i know that's something that so many of our parents are concerned about i just want to say i appreciate the addition of that okay number 6161 we started this discussion and study session appreciate the engagement of board give any uh members at this point for our audience from others and then forward with further discussion the board leave this as discussion only or the board could choose to act on this uh put this policy in place remind the board that we do not as per state requirements are not required to have

185a policy in place until october first in the discussion and okay i just want to see all the board members eyes real quick knowing that we have a different group here than we have in the study session do you is it important for us to share all of the information we did in study session from the beginning of house bill 374 down as well as the timeline and then that part where we talked about what we did this summer while we were waiting for uh policy work to be done so that the public could see um you know there's a lot of stuff that's been out there even with the media and i i don't know i just want to see from your eyes what would you like me to do and talk about do

186you want me to jump into the policy or go over the presentation stuff i wonder or discussion number 6161 with the following amendments in the procedure section we need to add uh section six and seven the confidentiality of the individual submitting the book challenge shall be maintained by the individual who receives it whether the administrator or the librarian anonymity will be given to committee members and we should also say our before the librarian unless the individual chooses to wave anonymity um second piece um on number seven we need to insert the definition from state codes it replaced the current definition with an exact state code definition in number 10 um replace the definition with the sensitive materials and state code only from 1235 and then on 3.4 change the language to an administrator may not

187remove photos decorations or other personal items from a teacher's desk or surrounding area as long as the items do not disrupt the learning process and then in 6.3.4 strike that line in 6.4.1.2 change from two to three years in 1.3 ad replacement considerations 1.3.1 if a book is removed due to sensitive material and communicates a marginalized community's perspective a book in a genre of equitable perspective that is within the confines of state code should be purchased to replace it do you have all of those changes here yeah they're they're representative so you'll see version two just for people who weren't in study session and you can see this these are changes made in discussion met with a couple of english teachers earlier today and with some board members outside of the policy committee just for

188an initial read again we were trying to hit that start of the school year knowing you know we're getting things the moving target knowing that we've got an extension until october 1 however if we could get some things in to run a pilot of the policy to see how it works so we can make final revisions in october or excuse me at the end of september for the october 1 deadline that that might help us as we work through this very complicated complex so it's not it's not perfect but it gives us a starting point and it gives schools information to go about more of a formal review it also does include i want to clarify this that we are temporarily restricting those 51 titles we don't have 51 at every site for example the

189high school that i met with today has three three of the titles the elementary's almost all 62 have zero so kimberly just to clarify those 52 titles will go in a restricted area but if i as a parent want to allow my child to access that i can communicate with a librarian that my child has like has access to all books in the library and she would be able to check out books yes yes correct and on the version from last night which is included here we worked with technology to create in that annual notice for parents in skyward that they could opt their child in to have access to restricted material but it's got to be an opt-in and changes prior to the october one and learn from those experiences including other stakeholders boys

190i think we just want to make sure that our public knows that we recognize for example your free speech rights and your free freedom to you know explore ideas and at the same time that there's a difference between a public library and a school library that public resources have gone into creating this school for you and there's a certain expectation happy librarians in that conversation we need parents in that conversation we need educators in that conversation thank you and also like to comment to them those of us um there are several dilemmas one is that this covers six different laws and we have gone through the policy that law by law says that there is and that there are two things you have to balance one is the law is very clear about pornography the

191definitions are very very clear that if there is found in any genre anywhere in the library it must be removed by law we can't have our schools being accused of promoting pornography it's against the law we can't do it so books that have clearly met the standard for pornography must be removed and that's by the law but on the other hand we have the first amendment rights and so that gives us the opportunity then to review books and to go through them very very carefully and to look at everything that is in that book and is it age-appropriate does it have any literary cultural scientific value and all of those things so we're trying to balance both one is by meeting the strict events along the blind line the others by having a very robust

192review process and a robust appeal process so that we can make sure that all voices are heard and that all communities are going to serve fairly equitably so it's it's been very very tricky and we're not quite satisfied yet i think we're getting closer so for me personally and i think i can speak for any of us in the next couple of weeks we would invite continued continued uh feedback from parents from students and for people associated with the schools as we sort of try to finish this process now looking at what we have at this point if you would like to give us more feedback we would really like to hear it because we feel like that would be really helpful to us in making this really fit the needs and the demands of

193albeit school district and it was mentioned before a little bit in study session but just to reiterate kind of with sarah's point is that um and i think this is where we're getting a lot of division within the community and a lot of us are getting emails as really being able to define pornography versus sensitive materials and it's hard because the state law kind of it's convoluted and it mixes all of this it's not about ideas it's it's it's the things that we have been sent i don't think that we have a lot of those books but some of those ones that we've been sending we've read the text when i show it to a brother-in-law who works for the fbi and works specifically it worked specifically for child sex trafficking and he reads that

194and goes are you kidding that i mean it raises the eyebrows of someone who for a living writes reports on what happens to children um i don't know if you're seeing the same things we're seeing if you're if you are i i don't even really want to share but i stand by you and hand you the paper things that have been given to me and it's completely different we are not in the business of washing ideas um or or marginalizing people it's with laws the hard thing also is writing policy is not necessarily easy but standing back and seeing how to apply those policies and what it looks like on the ground level has cost us pots because it's one thing to go through policy it's another thing to think of how this is going

195to affect our librarians our teachers our administrators and um and yet find that balance with parents and so we appreciate the patience of the community it's it's not and we're happy to do the task but it does take time and i feel like the policy sees the importance and the value of talking pausing thinking listening and really clearing our heads on a policy that we that we feel like it's worth the deliberation and the intentional deliberation that it takes to make sure that we're doing it the right way i'm a little hesitant to pass the policy because there are still some issues that we need to work out but after talking in study session i feel comfortable how we've discussed that maybe we can work through those things we talked about piloting things and maybe

196adjusting the policy that's making me feel a little bit more comfortable knowing this is not going to be laminated there will be some changes and things that we want to see we want to get feedback and so as we continue the process we'll just be patient and learn as we go but i just if there was anything it's just remember you're looking at book but the things that we really need to make sure that we're clarifying carefully and succinctly can i clarify one more thing too we've had questions that wait is house bill 374 a library media bill no it's not it's instructional materials can we define media materials in instructional materials yes but you'll look at the title of our pro our policy this is more than library materials there's a portion of it

197that talks it speaks to libraries so i think the narrative gets out there you know especially when you see things on the news we're removing these from everything's library library library this is instructional material as a whole it's what is in textbooks it's what's digitally available it's what's on hand it's pamphlets posters it's it's everything it's what we that's when we said we studied state code that's what we studied it's more than just one section of learning environment for our students it's classrooms as well okay so um first off i have to say i'm appreciative to the policy committee for how much time they've spent on this i know that's super grueling and i also want to say how much i appreciate the fact that they have been willing to take um be back and

198be willing to kind of look at some of the pieces um i do want to address a couple of things um i know that it's not just the library it's also instructional materials but it feels like the library piece has been kind of the focus um i will say um this has been a really tough one for me i don't censor what my kids read and i know that's probably a little bit of an anomaly in the communities that we live in but once my kids hit secondary schools we've already had conversations and i've never had an issue i will also admit that some of these books i've read and some of these books are in my home one of my concerns is that the state definition of pornography is things like nudity and sex

199which i would argue can be pornographic but just nudity in and of itself is not pornography the david is not pornography when you look at renaissance paintings that's not pornography there is a you know new drawing of a man from the back michelle silverstein book i don't think that's pornography so i struggle with we are beholden to a state law that i think is overly restrictive i also very much support that a parent should have the right to choose what their child is exposed to so i appreciate the fact that we have been able to work through and provide potentially an option in skyward so that parents can say for the parents who want their children to have full access to the library they still have that option um i realize that this is probably

200going to be amended the policy in general just frustrates me it just frustrates me that we are put in a situation where i feel like our hands are tied um and i want to acknowledge that particularly with the 52 books that were on the list that 37 of them dealt with lgbtq issues significant portion of them also dealt with our bipolar community i am concerned that we can have a bias because we are uncomfortable with queer sexuality and i am glad that they're going back through the review process that we are correcting that and making sure they go back through the review process i am um and i appreciate i want to make sure that i point out specifically how we address that was in the amendment that we made in that 1.3.1 that if

201a book is removed due to sensitive material and communicates a marginalized community's perspective a book in a genre of equitable perspective that is within the confines of state code should be purchased to replace it we are not erasing lgbtq and bipap voices we are we in this policy we are making sure that those voices are maintained in our libraries so that if there are books that do violate the state code that is very i would argue restrictive that we still have a way to make sure that the perspective of those students and those community members are a part of our libraries so i hope that that is something that is heard and recognized that we are aware of that and we are trying to be very intentional to make sure that we do have diverse

202libraries that reflect the community in which we live and that includes our bypoc and our lgbtq community okay so i i'm sorry but not sorry sorry i'm sorry um first i just wanted to really honestly thank you for the discussion and study session and i think um what i walked away from the most appreciating and studying session was calling attention to maybe this didn't go out as exactly it sounds like maybe it would have been differently and i just um because we do see them if we do hear them and we do meet them we are all very committed to making sure that whatever this lands on is what's best for everyone we know that our librarians work so hard and really they provide safe havens for our students right and they know exactly what

203to suggest i'm so concerned um along the lines with which i said uh i'm not advocating for any type of pornography library but i was i am a little bit concerned that this state code definition says it basically says if you have any of these three things there is no library value for layers in the book and we don't have any that's what it don't have the says to say this book is about a hard topic it's about it's a mature book it's not right for every kid for some kids and their parents should be able to help am a them bit concerned about that because i feel like some of the things am really appreciative of the policy committee i know this has been a hard spot for them it's been difficult and i

204think it's been difficult for our librarians our teachers are concerned parents are concerned everybody's concerned and i think um it's a hard it's a really hard discussion i majored in english in college and i read a lot of books that really pushed me and some of them were really uncomfortable but you know they did change the way i look at the world and the way i look at how my place in the world and how i can help people and so even though in my secondary school experience and in my college experience i read some books that i didn't want the kids to read i feel like they were valuable for me and so um i don't want to deny our kids the opportunity to wrestle with that same personal growth option but i also

205think parents need to be aware of what their kids are reading maybe to have some say in that and they need to be able to say this book is not right for this term and i have kids that i would not let read something and kids that i would like so my only other comment is i am especially supportive of looking for other titles that will bring the viewpoints of marginalized students into our libraries because i think um but we have students you don't know where to turn to they need to see themselves and know that they have a place and so i think but um and i hope everybody will be patient i think i was not supportive of passing it tonight but i also was frustrated that we weren't going to have something

206in place for our librarians for our teachers to feel like they knew where we were headed but i like the idea of passing it and trying it out and piloting it seeing how it goes and then with the promise of revising and looking at it again in a month or so before that is um i guess my concern is we're trying to build six different state laws two different letters attorney general some of them cross-reference each other in very confusing ways and i am still wrestling i've been wrestling and i thought i had a clear in my mind but we just amended what i wrote so i i will support tonight but i cannot support uh in a permanent fashion this this has to be revisited i like our policy to be clear and accessible

207to our public and not written like law i think there needs to be a difference i think we can reference the law but our policy needs to be understandable and perfectly clear and this is not another discussion uh yes sorry i got myself together now um a couple other things i wanted to address i know we have a lot of teachers who are really concerned with um so this is an unfunded mandate which is our least favorite direction and so i guess i just want to say that we are aware that it's going to have to be done on somebody's contract time which means something else isn't going to get done and so to understand that i have all of my reading that i already do to help get myself prepared for my kids in

208my class i'm always somebody who pushes up to my parents the list of books that i'm using during that month and the description of the rating of the summary of it and so what she indicated is will we be paid for this and see these are the things that we've got to see within the next four or five weeks what time is really going into the committee work you've got to also train the committee the passion that you guys all displayed and you shared in your thoughtfulness i'm sure the new school committee is going to have those tender feelings as well knowing that their kids are going to be impacted and the kids that are in their community the parents should be parents should be reflective of the school community so we have to think

209of our employees who are serving on the committee our advocates can do anything we haven't even addressed how we're going to are they doing it after hours are we getting a sub for them who's paying for the sub i mean there are some things that we've got to get into it's all those questions that we couldn't all agree on do we have to buy material that's deemed sensitive if by the whole committee the book we don't have a fund to do that so we have some recommendations that were mentioned in study session so that those things are being done but again these are all the complicated areas that nobody really is addressing alpine school district is probably the first okay also um i think we learned a lot through this i'm not gonna name anybody

210because i didn't ask ahead of time but i do want to say it's one of those you know you are that sounds terrible but thank you to all the teachers and librarians who reached out with very specific you know this is how this impacts me or can we talk about this and even something as simple as my contract doesn't start till thursday thursday you know and i got this email to have this done and so i guess i just in general i'm very appreciative of people who who just say what is my expectation should i have done that because i think we're able to learn a lot and give some clarification there um and then two last things one as far as i know all of our english teachers and their disclosure documents they line

211it all up right and if they're going to do a special assignment expect something home say you know we're going to be using this book for this assignment in this way if you do not want that for your child please let me know i provide an alternative assignment and so i just thought i would mention that because we're heading into the season of disclosure documents i'm not suggesting that i would ever just decide something without reading it front to back but it's maybe a friendly reminder to all of us that they work really hard on the information they put in those and this may be a great time and then also just as we've been hearing a lot about parent choice um whether it's library books or classroom books or assignments or chromebooks parents are

212in charge and you can do what is best for your family and if that means you're not comfortable with a crumpled coming home there's absolutely a provision that allows a student to leave it at school pick it up the next morning you can contact a teacher anytime i mean the english teachers i know anyway um are open like is this the right fit for for my child what are your thoughts on this so i guess i would just encourage everybody to remember that they do have um the parents have the first day and they know their child's best i would hope that they would um reach out directly to the teachers involved or principals and um also maybe we all just need to re-look at our technology rules and our homes and thank you for

213the discussion well i appreciate all the special work that's gone into this i think although we said that this was a pilot it's not the motion was uh and our intention is to amend it before the october first deadline i think it feels like there are things that we're going to learn by doing that we need there's no other way to learn except to try it out so those things 6161 with amendments that julie specified for selection adoption construction materials those are opposed the motion passes thank you by the way i wanted to mention to craig that you got off kind of easy i mean kimberly's like used to leaving the podium with bruises and whole pile of revisions so you just know that it may not be this easy in the future if you

214know what it means so anyway thank you for both of you for uh for your work on these policies we now have board member and superintendent reports and information items i got a fast one ready so um i think it was a couple weeks ago i don't know what day it is um but i lane was kind enough to take me on a tour of our tech folks and i know all the things now um but what but a couple of things i just wanted to i'm sure one it was awesome to learn how everybody functions in their individual role but how together they kind of make this fantastic team um and i want if there's one thing you share with your friends from tonight there's a video coming to tell you how to use

215bloxy there have always been filters on computers again maybe another reminder to read all the emails i know those secondary emails sometimes it's like a five scroll from the high school but the information is there and i appreciate the proactivity and blades part as we're looking at things like security for employees parents students everybody anyways it was a fascinating learning experience for me and i think our friends are a little far away from us over here and they probably don't get as much appreciation and love as maybe they deserve so i just wanted to say thank you to blaine and everybody in his building who um i mean i learned about what do we call them the thingies in the ceiling the access points yeah fascinating so just thank you to everybody who's behind the

216scenes who keeps things running so our kids can do the things that they need to do i have a quick one too so i want to give a shout out to east shore because summer is probably their crazy time and i have had two children completing these short classes and i am very appreciative of them and their patients so i i just wanted to is anything else one more thing the communication community met today and i am excited to tell the public that we are they are i'm going to be producing a series of three to five minute videos about the district um and maybe maybe dr hardsworth will be the voice some of them will be a day in the life of a bus driver or something like that um but uh stay tuned

217those are gonna be posted and they'll be starting formulas sometimes okay uh okay so we have need for a closed session to discuss personal properties hi okay we're now moving to closing that's